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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. \ 



BEGINNING LIFE 



A Book for Young Men, 



JOHN TULLOCH. D.D. 

PRINCIPAL OF ST. ' MARY's COLLEGE, ST. ANDREW'S, 




^'U/'^O'ii^ 



NEW YORK : 
H. WORTHINGTON, 750 BHOADVVAY. 

1877. 






All rights reserved. 



xl 



PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. 



In this new edition of "Beginning Life," I 
have re-written entirely the part dealing with 
the genuineness of the Gospels in the light of 
the most recent criticism on the subject, and 
especially the confident statements as to the 
later origin of all the four Gospels made by 
the author of " Supernatural Religion." With 
no pretensions to deal in such a volume with 
the details of this author's argument, I think I 
have pointed out sufficiently how little the 
course of his argument affects the originality 
of the substantial evidence for the super- 
natural origin of Christianity. Here, as 
throughout, I have sought to state the case 
with perfect candour and impartiality — in 
short, to take the reader into my confidence, 
and (as I hope) to give him some real assist- 
ance in coming to a right conclusion. Die- 



vi PREFACE. 

tation in such matters can do no good on 
one side or the other. Every one who wishes 
to have an intelligent opinion must look at 
the facts so far for himself, and form his own 
judgment. I have simply tried to help the 
young reader in doing this. 

February^ 1876. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION, 



FAGB 
I 



PART I.— RELIGION. 
» 

I. IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION, . 
IL OBJECT OF RELIGION, 
HL THE SUPERNATURAL, 
IV. REVELATION, . 

V. THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. . 
VL THE INDIRECT WITNESS, , 

VII. THE DIRECT WITNESS, 
VIIL THE INTERNAL WITNESS, 
IX. WHAT TO BELIEVE, » 

X. WHAT TO AIM AT, 



9 
15 

30 
41 

46 

51 

66 

125 

138 
160 



viii CONTENTS. 

PART II.— BUSINESS 



FACT 



I. WHAT TO DO, » • . • • 173 

n. HOW TO DO IT, • • . • . 104 



PART III.— STUDY 

L HOW TO READ, , . . . . 213 

CI. BOOKS—WHAT TO READ, . . .233 



PART IV.— RECREATION. 

L HOW TO ENJOY, . . . . . ^73 

VL WHAT TO ENJOV, . , , . 29O 



CONCLUSION, 313 



Work away I 
For the Master's eye is on us. 
Never off us, stil' upon us, 
. Night and day ! 

Work away ! 
Keep the busy fingers plying; 
Keep the ceaseless shuttles flying; 
See that never thread lie wrong; 
Let not clash or clatter round us, 
Sound of whirring wheels, confound U8; 
Steady hand I let woof be strong 
And firm, ihat has to last so long I 

Work away! 

Bring your axes, woodmen true ; 
Smite the forest till the blue 
Of Heaven's sunny eye looks through 
Every wide and tangled glade ; 
Jungle swamp and thicket shade 

Give to-day I 
O'er the torrents fling your bridges, 
Pioneers ! Upon the ridges 
Widen, smooth the rocky stair— 
They that follow, far Dehind, 
Coming after us, will find 
Surer, easier, footing there ; 
Heart to heart, and hand with hand. 
From the dawn to dusk of day. 

Work away ! 
Scouts upon the mountain's peak— 
Ye that see the Promised Land, 
Hearten us I for ye can speak 
Of the country ye have scann'd, 

Far away I 

Work away ! 
For the Father's eye is on us, 
Never off us, still upon us. 

Night and day ! 

Work and pray! 
Pray! and Work will be completer; 
Work ! and Prayer will be the sweeter; 
Love ! and Prayer and Work the fleeter 
Will ascend upon their way 1 

Live in Future as in Present ; 
Work for both while yet the day 
Is our own ! for Lord and Peasant, 
Long and bright as summer's day, 
Cometh, yet more sure, more pleasant, 
Cometh soon our Holiday; 
Work away 1 

The Autlwrqf " Thk Patiencb of Hofe.'* 




INTRODUCTION. 




)HERE is a charm in opening man- 
hood which has commended itself 
to the imagination in every age. 
The undefined hopes and promises 
of the future — the dawning strength 
of intellect — the vigorous flow of passion — the 
very exchange of home ties and protected joys 
for free and manly pleasures, give to this period 
an interest and excitement unfelt, perhaps, at 
any other. It is the beginning of life in the 
sense of independent and self-supporting action. 
Hitherto life has been to boys, as to girls, a 
derivative and dependent existence — a sucker 
from the parent growth — a home discipline 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

of authority and guidance and communicated 
impulse. But henceforth it is a transplanted 
growth of its own — a new and free power of 
activity, in which the mainspring is no longer 
authority or law from without, but principle or 
opinion from within. The shoot, which has been 
nourished under the shelter of the parent stem, 
and bent according to its inclination, is trans- 
ferred to the open world, where of its own im- 
pulse and character it must take root, and grow 
into strength, or sink into weakness and vice. 

There is a natural pleasure in such a change. 
The sense of freedom is always joyful, at least 
at first. The mere consciousness of awakening 
powers and prospective work touches with ela- 
tion the youthful breast. 

But to every right -hearted youth this time 
must be also one of severe trial. Anxiety must 
greatly dash its pleasure. There must be regrets 
behind, and uncertainties before. The thought 
of home must excite a pang even in the first 
moments of freedom. Its glad shelter — its 
kindly guidance — its very restraints, how dear 
and tender must they seem in parting ! How 
brightly must they shine' in the retrospect as 
the youth turns from them to the hardened and 
unfamiliar face of the world ! With what a 
sweet, sadly-cheering pathos must they linger 
in the memory! And then what chance and 
hazard is there in his newly -gotten freedom 1 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

What instincts of warning in its very novelty 
and dim inexperience ! What possibilities of 
failure as well as of success in the unknown 
future as it stretches "before him ! 

Serious thoughts like these more frequently 
underlie the careless neglect of youth than is 
supposed. They do not shew themselves, or 
seldom do ; but they work deeply and quietly. 
Even in the boy who seems all absorbed in 
amusements or tasks there is frequently a secret 
life of intensely serious consciousness which keeps 
questioning with itself as to the meaning of what 
is going on around him and what may be before 
him— ;-which projects itself into the future, and 
rehearses the responsibilities and ambitions of 
his career. 

Certainly there is a grave importance as well 
as a pleasant charm in the beginning of life. 
There is awe as well as excitement in it, when 
rightly viewed. The possibilities that lie in it 
of noble or ignoble work — of happy self-sacrifice 
or ruinous self-indulgence — the capacities in the 
right use of which it may rise to heights of beau- 
tiful virtue, in the abuse of which it may sink to 
depths of debasing vice — make the crisis one of 
fear as well as of hope, of sadness as well as of 
joy. It is wistful as well as pleasing to think of 
the young passing year by year into the world, 
and engaging with its duties, its interests, and 
temptations. Of the throng that struggle at the 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

gates of entrance, how many reach their antici- 
pated goal ? Carry the mind forward a few years, 
and some have climbed the hills of difficulty and 
gained the eminence on which they wished to 
stand — some, although they may not have done 
this, have yet kept their truth unhurt, their in- 
tegrity unspoiled ; but others have turned back, 
or have perished by the way, or fallen in weak- 
ness of will, no more to rise again. 

As we place ourselves with the young at the 
opening gates of life, and think of the end from 
the beginning, it is a deep concern more than 
anything else that fills us. Words of earnest 
argument and warning counsel rather than of 
congratulation rise to our lips. The seriousness 
outweighs the pleasantness of the prospect. The 
following pages have sprung out of this feeling. 
They deal with religion, and especially with the 
difficulties of Christian faith at present ; they 
venture to touch upon professional business and 
its responsibilities ; they offer some counsels as to 
study and books. The interests and occupation 
of the writer have naturally led him to deal with 
the first of these topics at most length. Faith 
is the foundation of life ; religion of duty ; and 
it is impossible to discuss either without respect 
to the peculiar atmosphere of doubt in which we 
live, and in which many of the young live even 
more consciously than their elders. Yet there 
is nothing of elaborateness — of learning — or the 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

pretence of learning, in these discussions. They 
are designed as the free talk of a friend rather 
than the disquisitions of a theologian. The 
author has long thought over some of the 
topics, and he should be glad if his thoughts 
were useful to any who may be busy^with the 
same inquiries. Plain and unelaborate as they 
are, they are not likely to interest any but those 
who have some spirit of inquiry. If to such they 
should prove at all " Aids to faith/' their highest 
purpose would be served. 



PART I. 



RELIGION. 




I. 



IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION. 




J HE most important subject to a young 
man, or to any man, is religion. What 
is my position in the world ? Whence 
have I come, and whither am I going ? 
What is the meaning of life and of death ? What 
is above and before nie? These are questions 
from the burden of which no one escapes. The 
most idle, the most selfish, the most self-con- 
fident do not evade them. Those who care least 
for religion, in any ordina.**y sense, are found in- 
venting their own solution of them. All experi- 
ence proves that men cannot shut out the thought 
of the Unseen and the Supreme, although they 
may banish from their minds the faith of their 



lo BEGINNING LIFE. 

childhood, and despise what they deem the 
superstition of their neighbours. The void thus 
created fills up with new materials of faith, often 
far less interesting and unspeakably less worthy 
than those which they superseded. Our age has 
been rife in examples of this ; and men have 
wondered — if, indeed, any aberration of human 
intellect can well excite wonder — at the spec- 
tacle of those who have professed that they 
could not conceive of any notion of a Supreme 
Being without emotions of ridicule, exhibiting a 
faith in the supernatural, in comparison with 
which the superstitions of a past age are pro- 
bable and dignified. So strangely does violated 
human nature take its revenges, and bring in at 
the door what has been unhappily expelled at 
the window. 

The thought of the supernatural abides with 
man, do what he will. It visits the most callous ; 
it interests the most sceptical. For a time — 
even for a long time — it may lie asleep in the 
breast, either amidst the sordid despairs, or the 
proud, rich, and young enjoyments of life ; but it 
wakens up in curious inquiry, or dreadful anxiety. 
In any case, it is a thought of which no man can 
be reasonably independent. In so far as he 
retains his reasonable being, and preserves the 
consciousness of moral susceptibilities and re- 
lations, in so far will this thought of a higher 
world — of a Life enclosing and influencing his 



IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION, ii 

present life — ^be a powerful and practical thought 
with him. 

It becomes clearly, therefore, a subject of 
urgent importance to every man how he thinks 
of a higher world. What is it to him t What 
are its objects, — their relation to him, and his 
relation to them } Suppose the case of a young 
man entering upon life, with the sense of duty 
beginning to form in him, or at least working 
itself clear and firm in his mind, how directly 
must all his views of the near and the present 
be affected by his thought of the Supreme and 
the future t It may not be that he has any dis- 
tinct consciousness of moulding his views of the 
one by the other. But not the less surely will 
the "life that now is" to him be moulded by 
the character of the life that he believes to be 
above him and before him. The lower will take 
its colour from the higher — the " near '' from the 
" heavenly horizon." There will be a light or a 
darkness shed around his present path in pro- 
portion as his faith opens a steady or a hesitat- 
ing — a comprehensive or a partial — ^gaze into the 
future and unseen. 

It may seem, on a mere superficial view, that 
this is an overstatement. The young grow up 
and go into the world, and take their places 
there often with little feeling of another world, 
and how they stand in relation to it. Their 
characters are formed as it might seem by chance, 



12 BEGINNING LIFE. 

and the tastes and opinions of the accidental 
society into which they are thrown. And no 
doubt such influences are very potent They 
are the enveloping atmosphere of character, 
silently feeding and rounding the outlines of its 
growth. But withal, its true springs are deeper 
— " Out of the heart are the issues of life." The 
soul within is the germ of the unfolding man, no 
less than the seed is that of the plant, fashioned 
and fed as it may be by the outer air. And the 
essential form of character will be found in every 
case to depend upon the nature of the inner 
life from which it springs. Whether this be dull 
and torpid, or quick and powerful, will very 
soon shew itself in the outward fashion of the 
man. 

The mere surface of many lives may look 
equally fair, but there will be found to be a 
great difference, according as some hold to a 
higher life, and draw their most central and en- 
during qualities thence ; and as others are found 
to have no higher attachment — no living spring 
of Divine righteousness and strength. What is 
deepest in every man, and most influential, how- 
ever little at times it may seem so, is, after all, 
his relation to God and the Unseen. The genuine 
root of character is here, as trial soon proves. 
How a man believes concerning God and the 
higher world — how his soul is — will shew itself 
in his whole life. From this inner source, its 



IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION, 13 

essential and determining qualities will run. On 
this foundation its structure rests. 

The religious belief of young men, therefore, 
IS a subject of the most vital moment for them- 
selves, and for all. Whatever tends to affect it 
is pregnant with incalculable consequences. To 
weaken or lose it, is to impair the very life of 
society. To deepen and expand it is to add 
strength to character and durability to virtue. 
The present must be held to be a time of trial, 
SiO far as the faith of the young and the faith 
of all are concerned. Questions touching the 
worth and the authority of Christianity are 
widely mooted and openly canvassed. There 
may be something to alarm — there is certainly 
much to excite serious thought in this prevail- 
ing bias of religious discussion. Of one thing 
we may be sure, that it is neither possible to 
avert this course of discussion, nor desirable to 
do so. It must have free course. The thought 
of many hearts must be spoken out — otherwise 
it will eat within, and the last state will be worse 
than the first. It may be perilous to have the 
faith of our youth tried as by fire ; but it would 
be still more perilous to discountenance or stifle 
free inquiry. Christianity has nothing to fear 
from the freest discussion. Its own motto is, 
*' Prove all things — hold fast that which is 
good." 

It seems a very hopeless thing, now-a-days. 



14 . BEGINNING LIFE. 

to try to hold any minds by the mere bonds 
of authority. The intellectual air all around 
is too astir for this. There is no system of 
mental seclusion can well shut out the young 
from opinions the most opposite to those to 
which they have been accustomed. The old 
safeguards, which were wont to enclose the re- 
ligious life as with a sacred charm, no longer 
do so. Even those who rest within the shade 
of authority, do so, in many cases, from choice 
rather than from habit. They know not what 
else to do. They have gone in quest of truth, 
and have not found it ; and so they have been 
glad to throw themselves into arms which pro- 
fess an infallible shelter, and seek repose there. 
This is not remedy for doubt, but despair of 
reason. And no good can come in this way. 

The young can only be led in the way of 
truth, not by stifling, but by enlightening and 
strengthening all reasonable impulses within 
them. Religion must approve itself to them as 
thoroughly reasonable — in a right sense — as 
well as authoritative. It must be the highest 
truth in the light of judgment, and history, and 
conscience. 




II. 



OBJECT OF RELIGION. 




J HE fundamental point in religious in- 
quiry must be the character of the 
Supreme Existence. That there is a 
Supreme Existence or Power operat- 
ing in the world can scarcely be said to be denied 
by any. The Pantheist does not deny the reality 
of such a Power. The Positivist does not dispute 
it. Both fall back upon something higher, some- 
thing general, in which lower and particular ex- 
istences take their rise. The Atheist or the abso- 
lute sceptic of existence superior to his own is 
not to be found, or, at least, need not be argued 
with ; for it is not possible to find any common 
ground of argument with him. and all contro- 



i6 BEGINNING LIFE. 

versy must suppose some common ground from 
which to start The pure atheistic position is 
so utterly irrational as to be beyond the pale 
of discussion. Everywhere in the range of mo- 
dern speculation and modern science, it is con- 
ceded, or, rather, it may be said to be implied 
as a rational datum, without which neither phi- 
losophy nor science would be intelligible, that 
there is a universal principle pervading exist- 
ence, and in some sense controlling it. 

What principle } and in what sense superior 
and controlling ? It is here that all the contro- 
v^ersy lies, and has long lain ; and in our time 
especially, the inquirer is met here at once with 
seductive theories, which, while they serve to 
exercise his rational instinct, and seem to fall 
in with the advancing results of scientific in- 
vestigation, are in their very nature destitute of 
all religious and moral value. 

The Pantheist tells him that the universal 
principle is nothing else than the spirit of na- 
ture, or the collective life, animating all its parts, 
and ever taking new shapes of order and beauty 
in its endless mutations. The Positivist speaks 
to him of the laws of nature, or the great scheme 
in which these laws unite, regulating and go- 
verning all things. By both the universal prin- 
ciple is held to be a principle within nature. 
Whether it be regarded as a Pantheistic spirit- 
life, or a material law or force — the conclusion 



OBJECT OF RELIGION-. 17 

is the same, that it is only nature itself in some 
modification or another which is the ultimate 
spring of existence, and the great arranger of 
it. There is no room left in either view for an 
Existence transcending nature, and acting inde- 
pendently of it. 

It may seem that this is a very old delusion ; 
and so it is. There is no creed of human origin 
older than that which deifies nature. There is 
no speculation more ancient than Pantheism. 
Yet there is none also younger — none more 
powerful over many minds at the present day. 

Is nature a self-subsistent, ever-unfolding pro- 
cess, containing all its energies within itself? 
and are life and intelligence mere develop- 
ments from its fertile bosom ? Or is mind the 
primary directing power of which nature is but 
the expression and symbol ? Is there a life 
higher than any mere nature-life— a rational 
and moral Will, transcending and guiding all 
the processes of nature, — in nothing governed 
by, in everything governing them } This is the 
issue, more pertinently and urgently than ever, 
in the present crisis of speculative and religious 
inquiry. 

How deeply this question goes into the whole 
subject of religion and morality must be obvious 
to any reflection. If once the doubt insinuates 
itself, and begins to hold the mind as to whether 

B 



i8 BEGINNING LIFE. 

there is a higher Will than our own instructing 
and guiding us, to which we are responsible, 
and whose law should be our rule, it is plain 
that the very spring of divine obedience must 
be slackened, if not destroyed. Men cannot 
habitually hold themselves free from a sense of 
duty and yet be dutiful — cannot deliberately 
cherish views at variance with all feeling of re- 
verence for a higher Power and yet be pious. 
When the mind comes to dwell familiarly on 
the idea of nature rather than of God, on that 
of development rather than of responsibility, on 
that of harmony rather than of authority, there 
gradually follows a marked change in the point 
of view from which life, and all its relations 
and interests, are regarded. There springs up 
an insensible and subtle selfishness, all the more 
powerful that it proceeds not from the grosser 
impulses; but from a diffused reflective feeling 
that nothing as it were can be helped, that 
'Hhe great soul of the world is just ;" and that 
every man accordingly is to take the good pro- 
vided for him, and make the most of it for his 
own happiness, unmindful of the happiness or 
the misery of others. 

There is plenty of this selfishness, no doubt, in 
the world under every variety of opinion, plenty 
of it, alas! in the very heart of the Christian 
Church ; but a system of thought which con- 
templates the world as its own end, and life, at 



OBJECT OF RELIGION. 19 

the very best, as a mere process of culture, which, 
by rejecting a higher Will, deliberately rejects 
a moral ideal, tends directly to encourage and 
educate such a comprehensive spirit of self-in- 
dulgence as the only guide of conduct. " Our 
appetites, being as much a portion of ourselves 
as any other quality we possess, ought to be 
indulged, otherwise the whole individual is not 
developed." This becomes the obvious canon of 
a philosophy which looks no higher than nature. 
It consecrates passion, and hallows the pleasures 
of the world as sources of experience and cul* 
ture. 

Such views may easily prove seductive to 
young minds. There is a novelty and apparent 
grandeur and comprehensiveness about them 
that steal the imagination as well as minister to 
the senses. Especially is this apt to prove the 
case where the fair claims of nature may have 
been made to yield to the arbitrary exercise of 
religious authority. When the bow has been bent 
too far in one direction, it will recoil in the 
other. Religion is sometimes enforced to the 
neglect and even the defiance of nature. Nature 
takes its revenge when it wakens up, and finds 
itself strong in the consciousness of neglected 
rights. Authority sometimes holds the reins 
upon conscience too tightly and pretentiously. 
And conscience takes its play when it is able to 
look its master in the face and finds how ill sup- 



20 BEGINNING LIFE. 

ported are its assertions, and how imaginary 
many of its terrors. 

The question before us is one of fair argu- 
ment and deduction, from the facts of nature 
and the characteristics of human hfe and his- 
tory. If the theory which regards nature in 
some form or another as the Highest, fits into 
the facts of the world, and adequately accounts 
for them — if it be satisfactory to the demands 
of reason and conscience, and furnish an ade- 
quate solution of the great realities of history — 
then it would certainly make out a strong case. 
But if it break down in every one of these par- 
ticulars — if it fail to meet the demands of reason, 
or conscience, or history — then it has no pretence 
on which to claim our assent. It is convicted of 
falsehood, and sent away. 

The special difficulty of the question consists 
in fairly grappling with our adversary. How 
are we to meet him } And what weapons of 
controversy will he accept t The two sides keep 
pitched against one another, like opposite camps 
of thought, without directly meeting. They do 
not come forth into some chosen field and fight 
cut their differences. The spiritualist appeals to 
internal experience — to the testimony of '' con- 
sciousness," as it is called ; but the Positivist re- 
jects this appeal, and calls for statistics as the only 
trustworthy ground regarding human nature. 



OBJECT OF RELIGION. 21 

The one says, " I feel and know in my inmost 
experience that I am not merely a part of nature 
— ^that there is that in me which asserts its supe- 
riority to nature, and its independence of the 
natural law of cause and effect ;" the other treats 
the internal feeling as merely a delusive play of 
consciousness, without any logical value, and 
says, '* Take all men in the aggregate, and their 
conduct is found regulated by invariable law. 
Over a certain area of population the same moral 
facts will be found to repeat themselves ; a cer- 
tain proportion will be found who commit suicide, 
who are guilty of theft, and who poison their 
neighbours. All this proves the mere natural 
necessity that governs human affairs.'^ 

The tables of the statistician are undeniable. 
Beyond doubt there is a fixed ratio in moral 
facts. There is nothing arbitrary nor unregu- 
lated in human conduct. The phenomena of in- 
tellectual and moral life, in all their subtle and 
complex combinations, obey the same order that 
is everywhere discovered in external nature. 

But this is nothing to the point. For the 
question is not as to the character of these phe- 
nomena, but as to the source of them. There is 
no intelligent Theist will claim that human con- 
duct be exempted from the law of serial de- 
velopment. But he refuses to admit what the 
Positivist seems to think a necessary inference 
from this — that this character of order in human 



23 BEGINNING LIFE. 

affairs arises from the same immutable necessity 
as it does in nature. In the latter, the whole 
process is physically conditioned. The links in 
the chain of succession may be all exposed. 
But in the evolution of mental phenomena this 
is admitted to be impossible.^^ The inductive 
logician allows as much as this. The Theist 
goes further, and maintains that, in the last re- 
sort, there is an internal power or self which 
cannot be brought within the law of natural 
sequence — nay, which, in its essence, defies this 
law, and places itself over against it. 

According to this view, man is under law; 
but he is also more than" any mere natural law. 
The laws which regulate phenomena apply to 
his conduct, but they do not exhaust his being. 
He has a spirit and life of his own which tran- 
scend nature-conditions, and are not contained 
by them. Above the system of these conditions 
there is a higher system of being, and man, in 
his innermost life, belongs to this higher system. 
It is his peculiar glory that he does so — that, 
amid ceaseless movements of matter, before 
w^hich he is apparently so weak, he is conscious of 
an existence higher than all matter, and which 
would survive its wildest crash. He knows 
himself, and that is what nature does not do. 
There is no play of conscious life in its mighty 
mutations. But man is characteristically a con- 
* Mill's Logic, iL 422. 



OBJECT OF RELIGION, 23 

scious being. According to the frequently- 
quoted saying of Pascal — " Man is but a reed, 
the feeblest thing in nature ; but he is a reed 
that thinks, {im roseau pensant?) It needs not 
that the universe arm itself to crush him. Ar 
exhalation, a drop of water, suffices to destroy 
him. But were the universe to crush him, man 
is yet nobler than the universe, for he knows 
that he dies ; and the universe, even in prevail- 
ing against him, knows not its power." 

" Man is yet nobler than the universe." He 
is characteristically a self-conscious, thinking 
soul, higher than all nature, and which no subtle 
development of mere natural conditions can ever 
explain. This is the eternal basis of Christian 
Theism, and of all religion that is not a mere 
consecration of earthly energies and passions. 
This is the only spring of a genuine morality that 
can survey man as under some higher law of 
voluntary obedience, and not a mere law of har- 
mony and growth. 

And if our appeal to internal experience is not 
accepted, let us carry our appeal into the open 
world of history. If consciousness may cheat 
us, surely the voice of collective humanity can- 
not deceive us. The Positivist at least cannot 
refuse an appeal to the course of civilisation. 

Now, of two theories of human progress, the 
one of which regards history as a mere develop- 



24 BEGINNING LIFE. 

ment of natural laws, and the other of which, 
while admitting the operation of such laws, yet 
recognises everywhere a higher Divine agency 
expressed in them — we affirm, confidently, that 
the latter theory is not only more consistent with 
the dignity of humanity, but is the only one 
capable of explaining its development. Once 
recognise the spiritual character of man, the 
power of free will and moral action in him, 
allying him to a higher system of things ; and 
history becomes a grand and intelligible drama 
with a clear meaning. Notwithstanding all its 
retrogressions and perplexities, the higher is still 
seen overcoming the lower, and the tide of im- 
provement swelling forward, not merely under 
natural changes, but an advancing force of moral 
intelligence. 

That this force is the special spring of human 
progress is everywhere apparent. At every great 
turn of man's course, it has been a new moral 
life — some breathing of a higher spirit — and not 
any mere combinations of material, nor even of 
intellectual agencies, which has saved civilisation 
from what seemed impending dissolution, and 
driven its wheels forward with a fresh impetus. 
Taking man in any point of view, it is the^ 
reality of this higher life, however caricatured 
and debased, that more than anything else strikes 
us. All speculation implies it — all religion wit- 
nesses to it. It is the light shining amid all 
the natural grossness of his career, and guiding 



OBJECT OF RELIGION. 25 



it onward amid all its entanglements. All the 
noblest deeds of heroism spring from it. All the 
highest expressions of thought radiate it. To the 
Positivist these are puzzles to be accounted for 
on his theory. To the Theist they are only the 
glancing expressions of his own faith in a Divine 
origin of humanity — the brightening evidence of 
a higher spirit in it claiming affinity with a higher 
system of things — a Divine order below which 
man has fallen, but towards which he still tends. 
Can any one, after all, seriously believe that 
human history is a mere play of natural forces, 
and man the half-conscious player — the creature 
not of a higher intelligent guidance, but rather 
of dumb nature-conditions and the brain-power 
which they generate 1 When the conclusion is 
thus nakedly put, it contains within itself its own 
refutation. • It would indeed be a contradiction 
of all progress, and a lie to all civilisation, to 
affirm that this was the climax of both — the dis- 
covery in which they were destined to culminate. 
No ; all consciousness and all history prove — if 
it is possible to prove anything — thaftoan is a 
spiritual being, with convictions, and hopes, and 
aspirations above the world, which no natural 
good merely can satisfy, and which are in truth 
the motion of the Divinity within him. He is 
nature, and yet spirit. " He is man, and yet more 
than man," as Pascal has it. There is a divine 
element of conscious reason in him which asserts 
its superiority over the whole sphere of nature. 



26 BEGINNING LIFE. 

While in one point of view we feel called upon 
to say with the same great thinker, ''What is 
man in the scale of infinitude ? — he is nothing in 
comparison ;" yet, in another point of view, '* He 
is everything in comparison." His very greatness 
is deducible from his weakness. A mere point 
in creation, he is yet its interpreter, and in a true 
sense its master. '* He is the prophet of the 
otherwise dumb oracle — the voice of the other- 
wise silent symbol." First humbly learning he 
can then rule its secrets, and apply them to his 
purposes and pleasure. He is thus the centre, 
if not the '' measure of things " — the conscious 
life within the vast circumference and variety of 
unconscious ^being, who gives all its highest 
beauty and meaning to the latter. " In nature 
there is nothing great but man ; in man there 
is nothing great but mind." 

Such a view as this at once carries us beyond 
nature. It is of the very essence of a free and 
intelligent will that it is allied to a higher order. 
It comes from above. It has its true being in a 
region of freedom below which nature lies. 

It is of great importance to apprehend this, 
because there has been a recent way of speaking 
which strongly insists upon the manifestation of 
reason in nature, and yet refuses to allow the 
former an independent existence. The cosmical 
order is nothing but a display of Divine wisdom 



OBJECT OF RELIGION. 27 

and power, yet we must not conceive of this 
w^isdom and power as possibly expressing them- 
selves in any other order. Nature not only mani- 
fests them, but embeds and fixes them. Take 
away the sign, and there is nothing behind. 

Now, it is clearly of no consequence whether 
we say "law" or "mind" if, in the last recourse, 
we mean by the latter nothing more than by 
the former. If we do not recognise something 
behind the cosmical order higher than itself, and 
whose subsistence is not merely in the order, 
then we need not trouble ourselves to go beyond 
the latter. If the mind that speaks to me in 
nature be absolutely invariable — if there be no 
living power beneath its "recondite dependen- 
cies'' which is capable of setting them aside, if 
it will — if the mind, in short, which it is admitted 
nature essentially manifests, be not a person — 
nothing but " order " — then I need trouble my- 
self but little with its investigation and study. 
A balder Theism than this it is scarcely possible 
to conceive. The position of the Positivist is 
more consistent and intelligible. He generalises 
facts, and gathers them into unities of law, and 
says he knows nothing more. There is nothing 
more, he pretends, than natural facts, and the law 
or order in which they shew themselves. Even he, 
indeed, is not quite consistent in saying so much, 
for the very idea of law only exists to him be- 
cause there is something more than outward facts. 



28 BEGINNING LIFE. 

There is a rational and spiritual element already 
asserted in the very apprehension of law. But 
at leastj he is somewhat more consistent than 
the professed Theist who speaks of mind in na- 
ture, and means merely, like the ancient poet, 
a me7is infusa per artzis — an immanent necessity 
of reason incapable of action apart from nature 
— inseparably bound up in its evolutions.* 

For on what ground do we discern '' mind" or 
''law" in nature at all ? Abstract the "we," the 
discerning agent, the light is gone — the vision 
disappears ; admit the " we," the vision is there. 
The mind is not in the facts. But the mind in 
us reads a mind in nature : 

** In our life alone does nature live." 

Not that we make nature living and intelligent, 
but that the face of nature answers intelligently 
to our intelligence. There is everywhere the smile 
of recognition on its great outlines; mind responds 
to mind as in a glass. But what sort of mind } 
Mind merely immanent in nature, and forming a - 
part of it.^ Not in the least We do not identify 
the mirror and its revelation. The Mind which we 
contemplate is free and moral like our own, in- 
habiting nature, yet also dwelling in the high 
and lofty sphere beyond ; acting by law, yet re- 
joicing in the plenitude of its own freedom — a 

* Oi even the modem poet — 

" A motion and a spirit that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought. 
And rolls through all things." 



OBJECT OF RELIGION. 2q 

living Personality, communicating with us in 
the medium of His own creation. 

To adopt and extend an illustration furnished 
to our hand by the writer whom we are combat- 
ing,^ — " If we read a book which it requires 
thought and exercise of reason to understand, 
but which we find discloses more and more truth 
and reason as we proceed in the study, we prro- 
perly say that thought and reason exist in that 
book. Such a book confessedly exists, and is 
ever open to us in the natural world/' True, 
but not all the truth. The supposed book is in 
itself a mere arrangement of dead characters. 
The thought and reason are not in ity except by 
a well-understood convention of language. They 
really exist only in the mind of the author ; and 
the really living facts before us are the mind of 
the author and the 'inind of iJ2^. r£ader meeting in 
the pages of the book. 

Such a book is nature, revealing to all who can 
read an intelligent Author. When we study it, 
the conclusion to which we come is, not that it 
is itself mind, or merely that mind exists in it, 
but that it reveals mind. It is the record of the 
thoughts of another mind which has freely chosen 
this mode of communication with us. We re- 
joice in the communication, but we conceive of 
the Mind as still higher than its communication. 
We are thankful for the volume; but we think 
of the Author as yet greater than His volume. 

^ Baden Pav^ell. 




III. 



THE SUPERNATURAL. 



^.^'^i:^^ EASON and history, then, carry us 
Vw beyond nature. We may refuse to 

t\vA listen to both, and wrap ourselves 
^^ in the conceit of *' general laws," as 
all that we can know. But all our better in- 
stincts rebel against this pseudo-intellectualism ; 
and in our moments of highest knowledge, as 
well as of lowliest reverence, we delight to con- 
template in nature an Author, and not merely 
a Presence — an intelligent Will, and not merely 
a comprehensive Order. 

But if this be so, there is at least an opening 
left for the supernatural. If there be an intelli- 
gent Author of the world — a moral Power su- 



THE SUPERNATURAL. 31 

perior to it — it is conceivable that this Being 
may manifest Himself in other ways than those 
which we call natural. 

Farther than this we need not go at present. 
We say nothing of the probability or likelihood 
of a supernatural revelation. Paley has put 
this supposition with his usual shrewd inge- 
nuity ; but other considerations besides that of 
the mere existence of a higher Power are re- 
quired to give effect to it. The question before 
us at present is simply as to the possibility of a 
supernatural revelation. And our position is — • 
Let a supreme Author of nature be once re- 
cognised — in other words, let a theistic basis of 
speculation be once accepted — and the question 
as to the possibility of revelation is thereby 
settled in the affirmative. 

It is of some importance to see this clearly. 
The comprehensive spirit of modern specu- 
lation has, at least, been useful in clearing 
away many entanglements of thought and argu- 
ment in which the opponents and defenders 
alike of the Christian faith were wont to 
lose themselves. Men see the bearing of 
principles better than they did. The specu- 
lative arena may be covered with as many 
combatants as ever; but the speculative atmo- 
sphere has cleared somewhat, and enabled the 
combatants to see more plainly where they 
stand. 



32 BEGINNING LIFE, 

Suppc^sing, then, we stand on a theistic basis 
— that, on grounds of reason, and history, and 
faith we have accepted such a basis, we are no 
longer in a position to dispute the very idea of 
miracle. We may argue as to the meaning of 
it, and the fact or occurrence in any particular 
case ; but we cannot repudiate the possibility 
of it. For where there is a supreme Will above 
nature, and ruling it, beyond all question this 
Will may subordinate nature to its special pur- 
poses — may, in other words, if it please, inter- 
fere in its ordinary operations.^^ Shut out this 
possibility, and you destroy the speculative basis 
on which you profess to rest. Deny that nature 
can be interfered with, and you leave nothing 
higher than nature. You make it supreme and 
self-contained. You shift your fundamental 
ground. 

Supposing on the other hand — as Hume virtu- 
ally did — you take your stand on a mere nature- 
basis — fix yourself on the phenomenal, incre- 
dulous of all existence beyond — then, quite 
legitimately, you would argue with him and 
others, that there can be no such thing as a 
miracle. If nature " round our life," and there 
be nothing else, oi, at least, nothing higher than 
its sequences, then the question of testimony is 

* This is the very principle laid down by Newton. The laws 
of nature are inviolable, except when it is good to the Divine will 
to act otherwise — nisi ubi aliter agere bonum est. 



THE SUPERNATURAL. 35 

out of account altogether. There can be no 
miracle. The matter is foregone and cpncluded 
on a speculative basis, which shuts out the idea 
of miracle altogether, and leaves no room for 
discussion regarding it. 

That this was virtually Hume's position is 
apparent to all who examine it. A ^'uniform 
experience against every miraculous event" is 
nothing else than the assertion of a nature-basis. 
Law or sequence is in such a view invariable. 
There is nothing else. It is of little consequence 
to argue about the relative value of testimony 
and experience, where experience is erected into 
a uniformity which cannot be overturned. This 
position has been avowedly laid down by modern 
unbelief The grand principle of law is pervad- 
ing and universal. It is impossible to conceive 
any conflict with it. And miracle being in its 
very conception at variance with it, must be 
rejected. This has been declared by a whole 
host of writers in our day. The young can 
scarcely take up a Review in which the position 
is not asserted or combated. 

It was very natural, perhaps, that this conflict 
should arise between law and miracle. There 
IS something so captivating in the idea of a great 
cosmical order, that it is apt to carry away the 
scientific mind, and shut out all other ideas 
from it. The idea is not only captivating, but 
illuminating. It gives light to the 'reason and 

c 



34 BEGINNING LIFE, 

peace to the conscience, when rightly appre- 
hended. . The theologian assuredly need not try 
to fight with it — he will only blunt his weapons 
and injure his cause — he must adopt and expand 
it, as was long ago hinted by one of the greatest 
of theological thinkers. 

This, Christian thought has not failed to do in 
our day. As the idea of law has ascended to its 
present dominance over the higher intelligence, 
it has been able to shew that the idea, rightly 
conceived, is not at all at variance with the 
Christian miracles. 

Supposing it be admitted that law is universal, 
that the world is founded on it, and is otherwise 
unintelligible to the reason. What then } This 
fundamental law or order is not necessarily iden- 
tical with any existing series of natural pheno- 
mena. These express it, but they do not measure 
it. You can only maintain that they do so by 
placing nature above mind — by denying the idea 
of a Supreme Will guiding and controlling the 
world — by denying, in short, the Theistic basis 
on which we profess to argue. It is not only not 
inconsistent with this basis to conceive of the 
Supreme Mind under the idea of law, but, in point 
of fact, this idea is essentially involved in every 
enlightened doctrine of Theism. God is eminently 
a God of order. Every manifestation of the Su- 
preme Will must assume to our minds the form 
of order. Arbitrariness, or caprice, or even in 



THE SUPERNATURAL. 35 

terference, in the petty use of that term, is entirely 
at variance with every enUghtened conception of 
Deity. 

So far, therefore, there is no quarrel between 
the upholders of law and the advocates of a 
Theistic interpretation of nature. Only the last 
word of the one may be law ; while the last 
word of the other is '' God.'* But further, if the 
action of the Supreme Reason is not to be mea- 
sured byanyexistingorder of natural phenomena, 
then we open room at once for a higher order of 
phenomena taking the place of the present, 
should this seem right and wise to the Sicpreme 
Reaso7t. The question is not one of " interfer- 
ence,'' but of higher and lower action. The 
Divine order may take a new start, and issue in 
new forms for the accomplishment of its own 
beneficent ends. The Scripture miracle is the 
expression of the Divine order in such new shapes 
— " the law of a greater freedom," as one has 
said,* '* swallowing up the law of a lesser." 

But this, it may be said — and has been by some 
said, not without the vehemence characteristic 
of old opinions — is something very different from 
the old idea of a miracle, which was understood 
to involve a " temporary suspension of the known 
laws of nature " — *' a deviation from the established 
constitution and fixed order of the universe." 

♦ Dean Trench. 



36 BEGINNING LIFE, 

Such definitions, be it observed, on. one side ot 
another, are in no degree scriptural. The scrip- 
tural facts simply announce themselves ; they 
nowhere tell us what we are to think of them. 
We may think of them in the one or the other 
of these ways, and yet be equally just to their 
Christian significance and value. 

Is there really, after all, much difference be- 
tween the views when we analyse and look 
closely at the terms in which they are conveyed } 
A ^' miracle," some will have us say, is a " sus- 
pension," a '' violation of known laws of nature." 
This is language carelessly flung in the face of 
scientific induction ; but what, after all, must it 
mean to any enlightened Theist } The " known 
laws of nature" of which it speaks, are and can 
be nothing more than some section or series of 
natural phenomena, and the supposed miracle 
nothing more than the temporary arrest or re- 
versal of these phenomena. Certain conditions 
of disease ordinarily cause death ; the progress 
of the disease is stopped, and the patient healed. 
The inevitable sequences of dissolution are ar- 
rested, and the dead man is restored to life again. 
These are sufficiently impressive illustrations 
of ''suspension" or ''violation" of natural laws. 
But are they not also very good illustrations of 
lower laws giving place to higher — the laws of 
disease to the laws of health — the laws of death 
to those of life ? We may use what terms we 



THE SUPERNATURAL. 37 

like, but the fact is we know nothing of the mode 
of miraculous operation, and rather reveal our 
ignorance than anything else, by our definitions 
in this as in many other matters. AH that we 
really apprehend is a change of natural condi- 
tions under some supernatural impulse. What 
appears ''reversal" or *' violation" to us, may 
seem anything but this to a more comprehen- 
sive vision than ours. 

The stoutest advocate of interference can mean 
nothing more than that the Supreme Will has so 
moved the hidden springs of nature, that a new 
issue arises on given circumstances. The ordi- 
nary issue is supplanted by a higher issue. This 
seems an appropriate way of expressing the char- 
acter of the change wrought. But in any case, 
the essential facts before us are a certain set of 
phenomena, and a higher Will moving them. 
How moving them } is a question for human 
definition, but the answer to which does not, 
and cannot, affect the Divine meaning of the 
change. Yet when we reflect that this higher 
Will is everywhere reason or wisdom, it seems a 
juster, as well as a more comprehensive view, to 
regard it as operating by subordination and evo- 
lution rather than by •' interference" or *' viola- 
tion." We know but a little way. It is not for 
us to measure our knowledge against God's plans, 
but rather to take these plans as the interpreters 
and guides of our knowledge. And seeing how 



38 BEGINNING LIFE'. 

far His ''miraculous interpositions" have entered 
into human history, and constituted its most 
powerful elements in the education of the hu- 
man race, it seems certainly the humble as well 
as the wise inference which is suggested in But- 
ler's guarded words, that these interpositions may 
have been all along in like manner (as God's 
common providential interpositions) ''by gene- 
ral laws of wisdom." 

According to this view the idea of law Is so 
far from being contravened by the Christian 
miracles, that it is taken up by them and made 
their very basis. They are the expression of 
a higher Law working out its wise ends among 
the lower and ordinary sequences of life and his- 
tx)ry. These ordinary sequences represent nature 
— nature, however, not as an immutable fate, but 
a plastic medium through which a higher Voice 
and Will are ever addressing us, and which there- 
fore may be wrought into new issues when the 
voice has a new message, and the will a "special 
purpose for us. 

The advantage of such a view is not only that it 
fits better into the conclusions of modern thought, 
but that it really purifies the idea of miracle, and 
sets it before us in its only true light and im- 
portance. It is not a mere prodigy or wonder 
which we cannot explain, but it is everywhere ^ 
" revelation" or sign — the manifestation of a be- 
neficent or wise purpose, and not a mere arbi- 



THE SUPERNATURAL, 39 

trary exercise of power. It is the indication of 
a higher kingdom of life and righteousness 
subordinating the lower for its good, bringing 
it into obedience to its own improvement and 
blessing. There is a higher kingdom and a 
lower kingdom — a kingdom of nature and physi- 
cal sequences, and a kingdom of spirit and free 
agency. '* And this free agency, straight out of 
the ultimate springs of the Spirit, seems to give,'* 
it has been said, ''the true conception of the 
supernatural. Nature is the sphere and system 
of God's self-prescribed method of reliable evo- 
lution of phenomena ; but above and beyond 
nature He is spirit, including nature, indeed, as 
part of its expression, but, instead of being all 
committed to nature, transcending it on every 
side, and opening a life of communion with the 
spirits that can reflect Himself All is thus His 
agency ; nature His fixed will — spirit His free 
will.** And the miracle emerges when the latter 
is seen to traverse the former, when the higher 
kingdom is seen to witness itself among the 
ordinarily unchanging phenomena of the lower. 

Miracle is, therefore, truly a revelation of 
character as well as an exhibition of power. It 
is the Divine Will coming forth to the imme- 
diate gaze of man, pushing back, as it were, 
the intervolved folds of the physical, so that 
we may see there is a moral spring behind it, 



40 BEGINNING LIFE, 

and making known some high purpose in doing 
so. The idea of interference for the mere sake 
of interference, or even of the mere assertion 
of might to subdue or overawe the mind, is 
not that suggested. Rather it is the idea of a 
higher plan and truth unfolding themselves, of 
a Will which, while leaving nature, as a whole, 
to its established course, must yet witness to 
itself as above nature, and shew its glory in the 
instruction and redemption of creatures that are 
more than nature, although having their present 
being amidst its activities * 

♦ "The one grand and essential distinction between the mir- 
acles of Scripture and the operations of so-called laws is the 
personal and sensible interposition of the Supreme Creator evi- 
dencing to man His supremacy over nature, and His providential 
care of man by such manifestations of direct power as none but the 
Supreme Creator could possess. This is what Christianity must 
maintain ; all other questions may be set aside. Nature is that 
course of operations ir. che world before us in which the Divine 
Will is working continually and perpetually, but to us secretly, 
and, as science will 'assc rt, uniformly, immutably. Besides that 
there is another course very deeply entwined with it, in which the 
hand and the presence of God are made known to us by a dis- 
tinct series of rare and extraordinary operations. Yet they both 
make up one whole, are both as much parts of one consistent 
and harmonious system as the grand ellipses of the moon, and 
its occasional mutations and deflections, are features of one pre* 
determined oxhiX^"*^ ^Quarterly Review^ October i86i. 




IV. 

REVELATION. 




suggested. 



[HEN we turn to contemplate the 
historical revelation of the super- 
natural in Scripture we find that 
it answers to the idea already 
It is not a series of isolated won- 
ders, but a coherent manifestation of Divine 
purpose, culminating in a Divine Personality, 
who came to bear witness of a higher kingdom 
and truth. 

What is the scriptural representation ? Be- 
ginning with the fall of God's free and intelli- 
gent creation from an estate of holiness and 
happiness to an estate of sin and misery, it un- 
folds, at first in faint and vague outline, but with 



42 BEGINNING LIFE. 

an increasing particularity and brightness as 
time passes on, a remedial or redeeming purpose 
towards the fallen. The evolution of this pur- 
pose, in adaptation to the varying necessities of 
human nature, is the great function of Scripture. 
Passing through the forms of what have been 
called the patriarchal, the Mosaic, the propheti- 
cal dispensations, the purpose brightens on us as 
,we descend the course of sacred tradition. What- 
ever is specially miraculous in Scripture gathers 
round it, and receives its highest meaning from 
it. To detach such events, and look at them as 
mere isolated manifestations of supernatural 
power, at once destroys their moral significance, 
and increases their historical difficulty. But let 
them be regarded as parts of a great whole — as 
successive manifestations of an increasing pur- 
pose running through the ages — as special utter- 
ances of the great thought and love of God for 
His creatures, of which no history is without 
trace, but of which the Jewish history is a con- 
tinuous and exceptional witness ; and then, 
while we never lose hold of the moral aim, we 
will find that the very perception of this aim 
helps to solve difficulties, and to impart a con- 
sistency and intelligibility to many details. 

The general form of the supernatural in the 
Old Testament Scriptures is that of direct com- 
munication between God and man. Adam hears 
the voice of God speaking to him in the garden, 



REVELATION, 43 

'* The Lord God " is represented as calling unto 
Adam and his wife, and enunciating articu- 
lately the first promise of a Deliverer or Re- 
deemer. In the same manner God speaks unto 
Abraham, to go forth from his native land, and 
promises to make of him a great nation. Jacob 
sees God face to face, and speaks with Him. 
The Angel of God speaks to him in a dream, 
saying, " I am the God of Bethel." The same 
Divine Personality, "the Angel of the Lord," 
appears to Moses " in a flame of fire out of the 
midst of a bush," and calls to him out of the 
bush, saying, *' I am the God of thy father, the 
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God 
©f Jacob." 

It is needless to multiply examples. This 
form of the supernatural runs throughout the 
whole of the Old Testament, and is, as it were, 
the great framework on which it is constructed. 
It is a revelation of God to man, in which God 
personally deals with man, instructing, directing, 
correcting, blessing him. One great thought, 
from first to last, animates the revelation — 
the thought of deliverance — of a salvation not 
come, but coming. Evil was not to triumph, 
although it had gained a temporary victory. 
The seed of the woman would yet *' bruise the 
head of the serpent." In Abraham all the 
families of the earth were to be blessed. By 
Moses a great deliverance was to be effected. 



44 BEGINNING LIFE. 

*' I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou may- 
est bring forth my people." Joshua was a '' sav- 
iour." Samuel was the prophet of good which 
was nowhere realised. David constantly pointed 
to a salvation higher than earth — to a rest which 
was not that of Canaan, otherwise '* he would not 
have spoken of another day." And in the later 
prophetic time, this idea of a future good, of a 
spiritual kingdom, rises into clear prominence. 
It is the dawning light which colours with its up- 
ward streaks the darkest horizon of prophecy. 

This promise of a higher Messianic kingdom 
and glory, more than anything else, binds to- 
gether the supernatural texture of the Old Testa- 
ment.^ Its fulfilment in Jesus Christ is the life 
and substance of the New Testament. He is the 
long-promised Messiah — '" He that should come 
to redeem Israel." He is the realisation of the 
continued thought of God for His creatures, that 
"they should not perish in their sins, but have 
everlasting life." He is the embodiment aikd 
completion of the Divine purpose, which Abra- 
ham saw afar off and was glad, of which David 
sung and Isaiah prophesied. All the threads 
of the supernatural, accordingly, are gathered 
up in Him, in whom are seen the '* treasures 
of the Godhead bodily." God is no longer 
found merely speaking to men from heaven, or 
in dreams, or appearing to them in momentary 



REVELATION, 45 

forms ; but He has become a man, living with 
men, teaching them, healing them, saving them. 
*' The Word was made flesh, and dwelt ampng 
us ; and we beheld his glory as the glory of the 
only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and 
truth/' 

The Supernatural is thus a living presence, 
running through the ages — an unfolding power, 
witnessing to itself as type, and oracle, and pro- 
phecy, till it culminated in Christ, who gathers 
to Himself all its meaning, who is its sum and 
explanation. The idea of a higher order cross- 
ing a lower and f^iilen order that it might restore 
and purify it, is exactly the idea which it sug- 
gests. And w^hen we have seized this idea, we 
see, nothing incongruous in the special miracles 
of Scripture. They fall, we might say, natu- 
rally into their place. Especially the Christian 
miracles cluster around the person of Christ as 
its appropriate manifestation. They are only 
the expressions of the higher will which abode 
in Him, and which sought its native and direct 
act*ion in the works of healing and life-giving 
blessing which it wrought 




THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 




J HAT are called the " Evidences of 
Christianity" form a varied and 
complex argument, many parts 
of which can only be adequately 
appreciated by the fully-informed and critical 
student of history. The last age, perhaps, 
placed too much dependence on certain branches 
of these evidences. The present age, probably, 
places too little dependence on the same 
branches. Such oscillations of opinion are not 
matters either of congratulation or abuse, as 
they are sometimes made. They are facts in 
the history of opinion to be carefully studied 
and made such good use of as we can. 



THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 47 

It will scarcely be denied by any one who 
really knows the subject, that the school of Sher- 
lock, and Watson, and Paley, made too much of 
what was called the ^* external evidence " of 
Christianity. They looked at its Divine charac- 
ter somewliat too exclusively in the light of a 
judicial problem to be settled by cross-examina- 
tion. They treated of various points quite con- 
fidently, which modern criticism has shewn can- 
not stand the test of scrutiny. They thought they 
could argue out their thesis irrespectively of the 
relation of Christianity to the spiritual conscious- 
ness of mankind, and even exhibit its Div^ine 
origin in defiance of the witness of this conscious- 
ness regarding it* In our day, on the con- 
trary, this self-witness, or '* internal evidence" of 
Christianity, is like to supplant the consideration 
of the external evidence altogether. Christianity 
is not only examined and tested by the inner 
witness, but often judged by it and placed out of 
court on the most arbitrary pretences. The last 
was an objective age, at whose cool assumptions 
we have learned to smile ; the present is a sub- 
jective and critical age, at whose rash denials the 
next will no less probably smile. 

Christianity, as being equally a fact of history 

* Dr Chalmers (in many of his habits of mind a strong dis- 
ciple of the Paleyan school) went this length in his early Essay 
on Christianity. Afterwards, however, he laid special stresa 
upon the internal evidence. 



48 . BEGINNING LIFE. 

and a truth addressed to the conscience, must be 
able to substantiate itself alike on historical and 
on moral grounds. It must be able to stand the 
most critical inquest into its supposed origin ; 
and it must be able, as St Paul never doubted it 
was, " by manifestation of the truth to commehd 
itself to every man's conscience in the sight of 
God." They are no friends of it who shrink from 
the most fearless inquiry and discussion in every 
direction. 

I. As an historical phenomenon Christianity 
has to be accounted for, if not on the supernatural 
hypothesis, on some other hypothesis. What 
has modern critical inquiry to say regarding it ? 
Is it able to furnish any natural explanation of 
it 1 It has settled, or nearly so, the genesis of 
all other religions. It can trace and discrimi- 
nate the various sources of Mohammedanism — 
take the student into the historical laboratory 
where it was compounded, and shew him, or near- 
ly so, the secrets of its composition. Can it do 
anything of this sort with Christianity "i Can it 
tell from what schools the various elements of its 
marvellous doctrine camei^ — from what sources its 
life germinated } The character of Mohammed, 
truly great and wonderful as it is, is a perfectly 
natural character, formed under influences and 
moulded by conditions which we can »observe 
and understand. The character of Christ — can 



THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 49 

we explain it in any natural manner ? Can we 
unfold its development, and shew how it grew 
up ? 

It is perfectly fair to ask such questions, 
and to insist upon an answer to them. If we 
cannot get a satisfactory answer, we have, at 
least, cleared the way for the explanation which 
Christianity offers of itself. 

II. What is this explanation ? What are the 
claims of the gospel ? It professes to be a 
supernatural revelation — a direct and special 
communication from God in the person and 
teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, and in the in- 
spired teaching of His apostles. In attestation 
of these claims it presents a series of miraculous 
facts attending its announcement — especially 
the great miraculous fact of the resurrection of 
Jesus from the dead. Are these facts 1 This 
might seem a simple question ; yet, in reality, it 
is a very difficult and complicated one, as will 
afterwards appear, when we examine the steps 
which its discussion involves. 

III. But Christianity must not only vindicate 
its Divine origin in history. It must, moreover, 
shew its Divine power in the soul and life of 
man. It must vindicate itself as the highest 
truth — as the only comprehensive philosophy. 

D 



50 BEGINNING LIFE, 

It is of its very essence thus to prove its Divine 
origin by its Divine grandeur and efficacy. 

The Christian evidences, therefore, may be 
reckoned and named as follows : — 

I. The Indirect Witness. 
II. The Direct Witness— Miracles.* 
III. The Internal Witness. 

Each of these lines of argument will claim 
from us a brief chapter. No one will suppose 
that we make any pretensions to treat them ex- 
haustively, or, in any sense, completely. This 
is quite beyond our present scope — quite beside 
our present purpose. We wish merely to set 
up a few guide-posts for the inquiring. The 
thoughts of young men must be often turned in 
this direction, and we should like to point them 
where they may find some clear and satisfactory 
issue to their thoughts. 

^ The argument from prophecy opens up a far too extended 
tield of discussion, nor is it at all necessary for our purpose. 




VI. 



THE INDIRECT WITNESS. 




HE question of the origin of Chris- 
tianity is one of grand interest in 
a purely historical point of view. 
What do we make of it? If we 
refuse to accept its supernatural origin, of what 
explanation does it admit ? 

Modern rationalistic inquiry has done some- 
thing to simplify this question. The picture 
given in the Gospels is now acknowledged on all 
hands to represent, if not a reality, yet a true 
growth of ideas. All notion of vulgar impos- 
ture has long since vanished. Whether or not 
the Christ of the Gospels lived and died as there 
described, the conception was not invented by 



52 BEGINNING LIFE. 

priests to deceive men. It is a genuine product 
of history. This is the very lowest ground from 
which we are required to set out. The Christ 
of the Gospels is a phenomenon to be explained, 
and not a fiction to be sneered at. The in- 
fidelity which sneered, rather than argued, is 
no more, or, at least, needs no attention here. 
Down from the dawn of our era there shines a 
light which has enlightened the world. The 
radiance which streams from it has touched with 
its glory every eminence of human thought, and 
every heroism of cultivated affection. We can- 
not get quit of the questions, Whence and what 
is it ? 

Naturalism is not without its answ^er to these 
questions. Let us hear what it has to say. 
According to it, Christianity m.ust be regarded 
in the main as a mere development of Judaism. 
The Gospel of St Matthew is its primitive ex- 
pression, and the Sermon on the Mount its proper 
type. Jesus of Nazareth was merely a Jew of 
distinguished wisdom, w-ho had the penetration 
to discern the moral truth that lay concealed in 
the official and popular faith of the Jews, and 
who had the courage to unveil and proclaim 
this truth. All of the miraculous which sur- 
rounds Him was merely the idealising dream of 
his followers after His death — the apotheosis 
which their fond faith and devotional enthu- 
siasm accorded to Him. The Christianity of the 



THE INDIRECT WITNESS. 53 

Church since its organisation is to be attributed 
to St Paul, rather than to Christ. It was not 
fully developed till the middle of the second 
century, when the Gospel of St John came forth 
(so they say) to crown the religious structure, 
which had been long rearing amid the conten- 
tions of opposing teachers. 

Such is something like the famous Tubin- 
gen theory of the origin of Christianity, which 
Strauss first enunciated, and which Baur, with 
the most wonderful misapplication of genius, has 
sought in various forms to elaborate and ex- 
pound. It has appeared with slight modifica- 
tions in our own country. It may be found as- 
serted or implied in Reviews that circulate in our 
families, and are much in the hands of young 
men. Whatever be the modifications with which 
it is argued, the meaning is very much the same. 
Christianity is but a development of Judaism, 
appearing in its first form in the Sermon on the 
Mount, and worked up into something of a theo- 
logical system by the learning of St Paul, and 
the the^sophic imagination of the writer of the 
fourth Gospel. Traditionary Judaism, rabbinical 
culture, and Alexandrian platonism, or pseudo- 
platonism, were the ingredients which went to 
make the composite gospel that was destined to 
subdue the world. 

The sources indicated are at least the only 
possible sources out of which Christianity could 



54 • BEGINNING LIFE, 

have sprung. And the advantage of this dar- 
ing speculation is, that it fixes us down to certain 
facts. It tries to take us up to the opening Hfe 
of Christianity ; and, refusing to own the Divine 
fountain whence it flows, points to certain rills 
trickling from older fountains of thought, which 
may have grown into it. Let us see whether 
they could. 

Setting out with the Gospel of St Matthew as 
the expression of primitive Christian doctrine, 
does it warrant the interpretation put upon it } 
Granted, for the sake of argument, that this 
Gospel is the first rudimentary form of Christi- 
anity, does it seem to come naturally out of 
Judaism 1 Could any mere process of purifying 
distillation have brought the Sermon on the 
Mount out of the traditional ethics of the Jews } 
This sermon is at least in the face of Pharisees 
and Sadducees alike ; it could not have been 
learned in any of their schools. It does not 
read as if it had been learned in any school ; but 
as the voice of One speaking with authority. A 
new spirit breathes in it — a new light and power 
emanate from it. It has none of the tentative 
air of a mere enlightened teacher of morals ; it 
does not flash with mere gleams of genius ; it 
shews no mistakes and no confusions ; but from 
first to last it is a high and solemn announce- 
ment; clear, calm, penetrating, and compact 



THE INDIRECT WITNESS. 55 

throughout. It is the speech of One who felt 
Himself abiding in a central light of truth, from 
which all human duty, in its multiplied rela- 
tions, seems plain and consistent. There is a 
confidence of tone therefore, and a strength of 
language here and there, which may excite cavil, 
but which challenge the keenest inquiry. A 
peculiarly divine Spirit seems to compass it all, 
and bind it into a perfect expression of truth. 

But, farther, it is not merely the Sermon on 
the Mount, and such morality as it unfolds, that 
we find in St Matthew's Gospel. Do we not as 
well find there, although not in so striking a 
shape as in the Gospel of St John, all the charac- 
teristic elements of evangelical doctrine } Like 
all the; other Gospels, it attributes to Christ the 
forgiveness of sins, and puts in His mouth lan- 
guage,* which, from a mere Jewish point of view, 
could be considered nothing else than blas- 
phemy ; nay, which was so esteemed by the 
Jews when He appeared before the tribunal of 
Caiaphas.f It is impossible to accept the first 
Gospel as a trustworthy record of primitive 
Christianity, and not to recognise the meaning of 
those sayings, in which He calls Himself the 
Son of Man, and asserts a relationship with the 
Father, which only His divinity can adequately 
explain. This Gospel, moreover, surrounds His 
death and resurrection with the same mystery 
* Matt X. 32, 33, xi. 27, xxil 45. f Matt, xxvii. 6^^^ 



56 BEGINNING LIFE. 

and Divine grandeur as the others, and seems to 
claim for them an equal dogmatic value. It is 
well to speak of a Hebrew Gospel, and a Hebrew 
Christianity ; and there are no doubt distinctions 
of great interest and moment between the vari- 
ous Gospels ; but it is to carry such distinctions 
to a quite unwarranted and arbitrary extent, to 
assert that the Christ of St Matthew is not sub- 
stantially the same as the Christ of St Luke, 
and even of St John. He is seen in somewhat 
diverse aspects in all the four Gospels ; more as 
the Messiah and King of Israel in St Matthew ; 
more as the Teacher and Friend in St Luke and 
St Mark ; more as the Divine Word in St John ; 
but in all He is " declared to be the Son of God 
with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by 
the resurrection from the dead.'' This He is no 
less really in St Matthew than in St John ; and 
even, if we were granted nothing more than 
this primitive Gospel, we would find it utterly 
impossible to reconcile it with a mere natural 
development of the character and doctrine of 
Christ. 

But what of Alexandria, and the peculiar form 
of speculative Judaism that there sprang up } 
Could this not have been the soil of the gospel } 
Could the seed which has grown into the tree of 
life not have started here "i It is the only sup- 
position which can claim a moment's attention 



. THE INDIRECT WITNESS, 57 

Yet it IS utterly incapable of shewing face when 
really looked at. We know what Alexandria was, 
and what Alexandrian religious speculation in the 
hands of the Jews was at the time of our Lord, 
as well as, or rather better than, we know what 
Jerusalem and its religious parties were at the 
same time. Philo, the great and comprehensive 
representative of Alexandrian Jewish speculation, 
was the contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth. He 
might have met, and even spoken with our Lord 
in a visit to the temple of Jerusalem which he 
describes. There are surface analogies between 
his doctrine and certain aspects of Christianity. 
Yet it is impossible to conceive anything in 
reality more different The one is speculative, 
the other practical ; the one is ideal, the other 
real ; the one is a philosophy, or system of know- 
ledge, the other is a religion, or " rule of life." 
Philo is in everything the philosopher, only 
working on certain inherited data of religious 
thought. As one has said, who will not be sup- 
posed to overrate the distinctions that separate 
him from the gospel : "Aristotle, Plato the 
sceptic, the Pythagorean, the Stoic, are Philo's 
real masters, Yrom whom he derives his form 
of thought, his methodical arrangement, his 
rhetorical diction, and many of his moral les- 
sons." His is '' the spirit which puts knowledge 
in the place of truth, which confounds moral 
with physical purity, which seeks to attain the 



58 BEGINNING LIFE. 

perfection of the soul in abstraction and separa- 
tion from matter, which attem.pts to account foi 
evil by removing it to a distance from God, let- 
ting it 'drop by a series of descents from heaven 
to earth, which regards religion as an initiation 
into a mystery." Of all this there is not a trace 
in the Gospels. Of the abhorrence of matter, 
which pervaded every form of Oriental specula- 
tion, we find nothing. 

"Another aspect," observes the same writer* — 
and we prefer putting the matter in words which 
cannot be supposed unduly urged — '* Another 
aspect in which the religion of Philo differs from 
the religion of the gospel is, that the one is the 
religion of the few and the other of the many. 
The refined mysticism which Philo taught as 
the essence of religion is impossible for the poor. 
That the slave, ignorant as the brute, was equally 
with himself an object of solicitude to the God of 
Moses, would have been incredible to the great 
Jewish teacher of Alexandria. Neither had he 
any idea of a scheme of providence reaching to all 
men everywhere. Once or twice he holds up the 
Gentile as a reproof to the Jew ; nothing was less 
natural to his thoughts than thS,t the Gentiles 
were the true Israel. His gospel is not that of 
humanity, but of philosophers and of ascetics. 
Instead of converting the world, he would have 
men retreat from the world. . . , In another 
* Professor Jowett — Epistles of St Paul, vol. i, 508. 



THE INDIRECT WITNESS. 59 

way, also, the narrowness of Philo may be con- 
trasted with the first Christian teaching. The 
object of the gospel is real, present, substantial^ 
and the truths which are taught are very near to 
human nature — truths which meet its wants and 
soothe its sorrows. But in Philo the object is 
shadowy, distant, indistinct— whether an idea or 
a fact, we scarcely know — one which is in no 
degree commensurate with the wants of mankind 
in general, or even with those of a particular indi- 
vidual. As we approach, it vanishes away; if we 
analyse and criticise, it will dissolve in our hands : 
taken without criticism, it cannot exert much 
influence over the mind and conduct." 

It is true that Philo speaks of the Logos or 
Word of God. This is to him, as to St John, the 
Revelation of God, and he might even use the 
apostle's words, " In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
God.'' But that which is above all characteristic 
of the gospel — the incarnation of the Word in 
the person of Jesus of Nazareth — is wholly 
foreign to his mode of thought. He would have 
shrunk from the idea of the Logos being one 
whom *' our eyes have seen and our hands have 
handled." '^ He would have turned away from 
the death of Christ" 

From such a system as this how could the 
gospel spring, or even the idea of Christ's life 
and death? ''It was mystical and dialectical, 



6o BEGINNING LIFE, 

not moral or spiritual ; for the few, not for the 
many ; for the Jewish Therapeute, not for all man- 
kind. It was a literature, not a life ; instead of 
a few short sayings, ' mighty to the pulling down 
of strongholds,' luxuriating in a profusion of 
rhetoric. It spoke of a Holy Ghost, of a Lord, 
of a Divine man, of a first and second Adam, of 
the faith of Abraham, of bre*ad which came down 
from heaven ; but knew nothing of the God who 
made of one blood all nations of the earth, of 
the victory over sin and death, of the cross of 
Christ. It was a picture, a shadow, a surface, a 
cloud above catching the rising light as he ap- 
peared. It was the reflection of a former world, 
not the birth of a new one." 

Where, then, shall we look for any natural 
origin of Christianity } In what soil of previous 
thought or moral culture can we trace its roots ? 
We dig and turn up every soil of the old world 
with the same result. It is not there. Antici- 
pation and preparation we can trace everywhere 
— in Hellenism, in Alexandrianism, in Orien- 
talism — above all, in the old Hebrew literature, 
which fed the souls of such as Simeon and 
Anna, " waiting for the Consolation of Israel." 
But nowhere can we find the germs which, 
without further divine planting, could have 
grown up into the tree of life. Nowhere can 
we trace the " root springing out of the dry 



THE INDIRECT WITNESS. 61 

ground;" and yet we know it did. Nowhere 
do we see spiritual forces in operation which 
could conceivably have generated such a cha- 
racter and such a doctrine as those of Christ, and 
yet we know that that character and doctrine 
came forth as a " light of the world." While 
Jerusalem was sunk in formalism, or sensuality, 
or fanatical bigotry, and Alexandria was lost 
in theosophic dreams, and Athens in eclectic 
idolatry or curious inquiry, and Rom6 in lust of 
dominion or mere literary pride, this Light arose. 
Amid a despised and unmoral people there sud- 
denly sprang up a moral power, which has 
proved itself the most exalted, the most vivi- 
fying, the most freshly enduring the world has 
ever seen. Arising in the East, it has proved 
peculiarly the strength and life of western civi- 
lisation — adapting itself to every emergency of 
human opinion and every crisis of human his- 
tory ; and, when seemJng to be worn out in 
the long conflict with human folly, ignorance, 
and crime, rising into new vigour, clothing itself 
with fresh powers, and taking to itself nobler 
victories. 

But why, it may be asked, should not a great 
moral genius have arisen in Judea 1 800 years 
ago ? Why should not a teacher of transcendent 
worth have sprung from the decaying stock of 
the old Hebrew culture, although Pharisee and 
Sadducee alike disowned Him, and no school can 



62 BEGINNING LIFE, 

claim the credit of Him ; a Teacher who was 
capable, by His own natural powers, of reading a 
new meaning into old truths, and inspiring them 
with a new spirit and life ? Why not ? This is 
the question put in the most favourable manner 
for the Rationalist, and which we are by no means 
bound to accept. For it is his business to prove 
the affirmative, rather than ours to shew the 
negative. Yet, taking it up from this point, we 
answer, because there are no symptoms what- 
ever of the rising of such a genius. The growth 
of moral ideas, like every other growth, can be 
traced first in " the bud, then in the ear, then in 
the full corn in the ear." We can trace the rise 
of Socrates, and the rise of Mohammed, to take 
two widely-different illustrations, in antecedent 
moral and social conditions, which did not indeed 
make them, but which explain them. All this 
historical connexion fails us with Jesus of Naza- 
reth. We see no hints of such a phenomenon 
in the antecedent tendencies of the Jewish mind. 
The very capacity of appreciating moral truth 
had well-nigh perished in this mind, still more 
the capacity of originating it, and clothing it in 
a creative form, which should be the seed of a 
new life for humanity. 

The Christ of the Gospels stands alone. As a 
moral portrait, He is without prototype or paral- 
lel — coming out from the dimness of the past a 
sudden and perfect creation. We look around. 



THE INDIRECT WITNESS. 63 

and in all the gallery of history there is no like- 
ness to Him. " So meek, so mild, so pitiful, yet 
Sv) sublime, so terrible in His perfect sanctity." 
There are noble and magnanimous counte- 
nances — but none such as His. There are 
splendid characters — but they are pale beside 
the lustre of His purity and beneficence. The 
quaint rectitude of a Socrates, and the hardy 
virtue of a Confucius, are dim and poor and im- 
perfect beside the holy sympathy, the loving 
sacrifice, the magnanimous wisdom, that shone 
forth in Jesus of Nazareth. To suppose such a 
character to be a natural development of Juda- 
ism seems among the wildest of dreams. 

But shall we, then, suppose that such a char- 
acter never really existed, save in the imagina- 
'tion of the followers of Jesus } Does this free us 
of the difficulty .? If it be hard, nay, impossible 
to conceive the natural development of such a 
character in point of fact, is it not still more im- 
possible to conceive the ideal of such a character 
forming itself in the imagination of a few poor 
and ignorant Jews "i Where were they to gather 
its elements } — from their dreams of a Messianic 
kingdom and glory .^ — from their broken and ex- 
piring traditions i^ — from their own wild hopes 
and vague enthusiasm "i There were no other 
sources from which the ideal could come ; there 
are no others suggested. Surely there never was 



64 BEGINNING LIFE. 

a beautiful creation, an ideal more perfect than 
poet has ever formed, or philosophy conceived, 
ascribed to so strange a parentage. To believe 
in such a possibility of divinely-harmonious ima- 
gination in four writers widely separated from 
one another, with no remarkable peculiarities 
of genius, with common peculiarities of weak- 
ness, according to the supposition, (for they all 
equally believe in the miracles they describe,) 
is harder than any belief that orthodoxy de- 
mands of us. One writer might be conceived 
inventing a lofty ideal, but that four such writers 
should unconsciously combine to form the ideal 
of the Gospels is utterly inconceivable. 

Then look at the age. It is the most unro- 
mantic and unmythical of ages — critical and 
speculative in Philo and in Plutarch — stern and 
denunciatory in Tacitus and in Juvenal — didac- 
tic and descriptive in Josephus and Pliny — ■ 
everywhere ingenious and clever in its wicked- 
ness, but nowhere imaginative — utterly without 
creative ideality. Could three unknown writers 
have given us the portrait of the synoptic Gos- 
pels in such an age ? Could the marvellous ideal 
of the fourth Gospel, higher than, yet perfectly 
consonant with the others, have come from a 
mere teacher at Ephesus in the first or second 
century } We know what sort of religious lite- 
rature the second century produced — nay, what 
sort of religious romance it produced. Can any- 



THE INDIRECT WITNESS. 65 

thing be more unlike the Gospel of St John than 
the '' Shepherd of Hermas ?" 

What is our conclusion, then ? We are shut 
up to the Divine origin of Christianity. We 
search everywhere for its natural fountain- 
head, and ' cannot find it. We turn to theo- 
ries of unbelief, and find them dissolve to our 
touch. What is left, but that we listen to the 
gospel itself.'* If it did not spring from older 
streams of human thought, it must have sprung 
immediately from the great Fountain of Divine 
thought. If not natural, it must, have been 
supernatural. There is a dignus vindice nodtis, 
and we call in the Vindcx. 




VII. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 




HE special evidence for the Divine 
origin of Christianity, however, must 
always lie in an appeal to the mira- 
culous facts which lie at its basis. 
Whatever may be the difficulties surrounding 
these facts to modern contemplation, it is per- 
fectly evident that they are not to be got over. 
They are not to be explained away either by any 
sleight of naturalism, or any ingenious system of 
ideology. They cannot be relegated to some 
vague domain of faith, and held in the mid-air of 
a religious reverie which does not know what to 
make of them. They must either be accepted or 
denied as facts. Their proof, as such, is either 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 67 

sufficient or insufficient. They are either parts 
of authentic history, or they are not. 

We have already seen that they cannot be set 
aside on any presumption of impossibility. It 
is not competent to do this without denying 
altogether a Theistic interpretation of nature and 
history; and this interpretation is what our rea- 
son and our moral being alike demand. Sup- 
posing that there is a Supreme Power distinct 
from nature, and ruling it and all things, then 
beyond question this Power may interrupt the 
sequences which Himself has established for 
any wise and good purpose. The question is 
cleared of preconception, and remains one of 
fact. It was peculiarly necessary to look at it 
in the former point of view to begin with, be- 
cause it is to this point of view that the question 
will always run back, and find its chief interest 
for the reason. In our time, discussion has more 
than ever centred here. But it is now neces- 
sary to look at it in the latter point of view as 
a question of fact, and to see upon what basis 
of distinct historical evidence the Christian 
miracles rest. 

It is of the very nature of such an inquiry as 
this to run into an accumulation of details, and 
minute questions of the balance of evidence, and 
the weight to be given to special circumstances 
as they come before us. The strength of the 
historical evidence for the Christian miracles 



68 BEGINNING LIFE. 

unquestionably lies in the combination of par- 
ticulars which point to one conclusion, and leaves 
the mind at length satisfied that there can be no 
other conclusion. It would be altogether beside 
our purpose, however, to make any attempt to 
set forth these particulars here. It is doubtful, 
indeed, how far any mere book of evidences can 
do this. Such a task, rightly viewed, is one for 
the student to enter upon himself and sift to the 
bottom, irrespective of summary representations 
on one side or the other. All we can do here is 
to indicate the broad lines or issues of the evi- 
dence, and especially the scheme of argument 
into which the facts form themselves, and by 
which they bear upon our credit and assent. 

Whether or not the Christian miracles nmst 
be accepted as facts, is plainly a question of 
testimony. This the apostles themselves con- 
stantly felt. They continually put the case in 
this way ; and particularly appeal to the great 
miracle of the resurrection as the express ground 
of their mission — the authoritative warrant of 
their preaching. '^ This Jesus hath God raised 
up," says St Peter, in his Pentecostal sermon, 
^ whereof we all are witnesse&r Again, with an 
unhesitating allusion to facts known to them 
as well as to him — the air of reality breathing 
in every word — ''The God of Abraham, and 
of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 69 

hath glorified his Son Jesus ; whom ye de- 
livered up, and denied him in the presence of 
Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. 
But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and 
desired a murderer to be granted unto you; 
and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath 
raised up from the dead ; whereof we are wit- 
fiesses!' Equally so in his address to Cornelius 
— " And we are witnesses of all things which 
he did both in the land of the Jews and in 
Jerusalem." The same ground is virtually oc- 
cupied by St Paul and all the apostles. They 
appeal to facts which they themselves knew, and 
to which they testified, especially to the great 
fact of the resurrection. It is quite evident 
that, in their opinion, the claims of Christianity 
hang upon the admission of these facts. If not 
admitted — if the alleged facts could not sub- 
stantiate themselves — their cause seemed a hope- 
less one. *' If there be no resurrection of the 
dead, then is Christ not risen. And if Christ be 
not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your 
faith is also vain.'' 

The Christian miracles, therefore, are facts to 
be proved, and the proof offered is the personal 
witness or testimony of the apostles. This testi- 
mony must be examined and sifted like any 
other testimony. What is it worth } What are 
its elements of trustworthiness or veracity.'* Sup- 
pose you find men come forward to bear witness 



70 BEGINNING LIFE, 

to any remarkable fact or series of facts, you 
inquire into the character of the men, their 
possible motives— disinterested or not — their 
personal relation to the fact — immediate or not. 
In short, all testimony must be thoroughly ex- 
amined and weighed, and is valid or not accord- 
ing to certain principles of sense and reason, 
which, however difficult to define, are intelligible 
by all. In this respect the evidence for the 
Christian miracles is on the level of all other 
evidence. From the very remarkable character 
of the facts, it must, in truth, be criticised with 
a special keenness, and judged with a special 
severity. 

But in the case of the evidence for the Chris- 
tian miracles, as in the case of all historical testi- 
mony, there is a presumption of an important 
kind. The testimony is not immediately before 
us. It survives only by tradition. The living 
witnesses are long since gone ; we cannot call 
them into court and put their veracity to the 
proof by cross question of their reports, and ex- 
amination of their personal look and manner. 
We have only the affidavits, so to speak, which 
they left behind, and which have been handed 
down to us. First of all, therefore, it is plain 
we must prove these affidavits. We must shew 
that the statements which they left were really 
their own statements. In other words, the genu- 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 71 

ineness of the evangelical testimony must be 
settled before we investigate the value and force 
of it. If any doubt rest upon this preliminary 
point, the conclusions we draw would be vitiated 
from the foundation. Supposing a witness in 
an important case to have died, and his dying 
declaration to have been put in in evidence, it 
is plain that this declaration must be proved to 
have really proceeded from him, before it can 
be held to be evidence at all. In the same man- 
ner, the Gospel of St John — shall we say, for 
it gives force to select a particular example — 
must be shewn to be really his testimony, to 
have proceeded from him, and truly to represent 
him or his age. It professes to do so in the most 
solemn manner. " This is the disciple,'' it says 
at the close, "which testifieth of these things, 
and wrote these things, and we believe that his 
testimony is true." This profession of author- 
ship must be substantiated by reasonable evi- 
dence before the substance of the testimony 
claims our notice. 

The question of the genuineness of the evan- 
gelical testimony, therefore, must be determined 
as a prime condition of the validity of that 
testimony This question, in fact, very much 
involves the whole subject, as it now stands in 
the light of higher and more comprehensive 
methods of historical investigation than those 
which prevailed in the last century. There is 



72 BEGINNING LIFE. 

now no longer any dispute as to the character of 
the apostles. The talk of imposture, as we for- 
merly said, has died away, or only survives in 
obscure corners of infidelity, from which all 
rational investigation is banished. There is no 
historical student doubts that the men who 
planted Christianity in the world were men of 
noble and honest character, and of self-denying 
zeal and labours — men who profoundly believed 
their own testimony, and lived and died to shew 
their faith in it — men, to use the words of Paley's 
well-known thesis, who " professing to be original 
witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their 
lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, volun- 
tarily undergone, in attestation of the accounts 
which they delivered, and solely in consequence 
of their belief in these accounts ; and who also 
submitted, from the same motives, to new rules 
of conduct." All this may be said to be beyond 
dispute. So far the " trial of the witnesses " is 
unnecessary. And to this extent, perhaps, some 
ridicule of the Christian apologies of the past 
century may be excused. It was the thought 
of a hard, superficial, and unhistorical age, — un- 
historical in spirit, notwithstanding the one or 
two great histories which it produced, — to con- 
ceive of the possibility of Christianity being an 
imposture, and the apostles being the impostors. 
A truer, more correct, and more comprehensive 
spirit of historical inquiry has dissipate^ every 



THE DIRECT WITNESS, 73 

such thought. It is universally recognised that 
it would be impossible to account for any great 
movement in human history on such principles. 
The very conception of the movement, and the 
undeniable character of it throughout, implies 
principles of a totally, different kind. 

The real, and well-nigh the whole inquiry, 
therefore, has come to be, not as to the character 
of the apostles, but as to their genuine historical 
position ; not what they were, but who they 
were, and how far we truly possess the ac- 
counts of what they said and did. These are 
the only points of inquiry that really divide 
those that are entitled to have any opinion on 
the subject. 

This will be more apparent in carrying out 
the argument to a conclusion. In the meantime, 
let us turn to the important point which it in- 
volves as to the genuineness of the Gospels. 

I. — Genuineness of the Gospels. 

This is really the essential point ; and modern 
unbelief has sufficiently recognised this by direct- 
ing its main attacks in this quarter. It has been 
the pride of German criticism to analyse with 
the most rigid severity all the particulars of 
evidence for the genuineness of the Gospels, and * 
to expose every weakness that they may seem 
to shew. It has certainly done its worst in this 



74 BEGINNING LIFE, 

respect, and with a skill which can never be 
rivalled. 

It must be granted — every one who knows 
the subject will grant that the inquiry into the 
genuineness of the Gospels is not without its 
difficulties. It is by no means the easy-going 
question that it appears in some popular sum - 
maries. It has its elements of uncertainty, and 
presents many nice points of criticism which 
cannot be discussed here. But it also presents 
certain main features which may be plainly set 
forth. The nature of the question will be ap- 
parent, and the conclusive force of the evidence 
upon which the Christian affirmation rests will 
abundantly shew itself — making every allow- 
ance for difficulties. 

The inquiry, in its direct form, is to this 
effect — What is the evidence that the Gospels 
were really the productions of their professed 
authors 1 Technically, a book is said to be 
genuine when it was really written by the 
author whose name it bears. Certain plays of 
Shakspeare are universally admitted to be 
genuine. The evidence that he himself really 
composed them is satisfactory to every mind. 
Others, such as the three parts of ' Henry VI. / 
'Titus Andronicus,' and ' Pericles' are of doubt- 
ful genuineness — that is to say, it remains, 
in some degree, a question whether he was 
really their author, or at least their sole authoi. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 7$ 

Again, there are eight books of the ' Laws of 
Ecclesiastical Polity ' attributed to Hooker, five 
of which are beyond question genuine. They 
were published under his name in circumstances 
which leave no doubt that they really came 
from his pen. The remaining three books were 
published after his death, and in circumstances 
which led to suspicions of their having been 
tampered with. It remains a question whether 
these three books, and especially the sixth, 
really represent Hooker's opinions, although no 
one can doubt that he was, in a general sense, 
the author of them, as well as of the five pub- 
lished in his life. These two illustrations may 
serve to shew something of what is meant when 
it is proposed to inquire into the genuineness of 
a book. Genuineness may be vitiated either 
by a lack of evidence connecting it with the 
supposed author, or by corruption of what the 
author has really written. This is the question, 
strictly so-called, and these cases serve very well 
to illustrate it. 

But the question in regard to the Gospels is 
substantially broader, and not exactly met by 
these illustrations. For example, whatever may 
be the doubts as to Shakspeare having been the. 
author of three parts of ' Henry VI.,' there can 
be no doubt that they belong to the Shaksperian 
age. They represent the same epoch in our lite- 
rature as his early plays ; they are expressions 



76 BEGINNING LIFE. 

of the same phase of our national intellectual 
life. There can be no question as to this. In 
the same manner, there can be no question 
that all the books of Hooker's Polity belong 
to the same age, whether or not he was really 
in a strict sense the author of them all. Now, 
it is this broader rather than the narrower 
view which may be said to cover the case of 
the Gospels. 

If the Gospels can be carried back to the 
first century, the direct authorship in every 
case is not absolutely vital. "Whether the 
existing Gospel of St Matthew, for example, 
is really the direct production of the apostle, 
or the translation of an original Hebrew 
Gospel of the apostle by some friend or 
associate, or possibly even a composite Gospel 
partly from the hand of St Matthew and 
partly from some later hand, would not really 
affect the conclusion at issue. There it is ! — 
a record of what happened in the knowledge 
and experience of the apostles, and of the 
apostolic churches, by one or more who 
professed to know of the events, and whose 
veracity is to be tested according to all the 
circumstances of the case. This is the very 
profession of St Luke. It seemed '^ good to 
him'' (although not an apostle himself), 
"having had a perfect understanding of all 
things from the first," to write them in order 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 77 

to his friend Theophilus, that he might ''know 
the certainty of those things wherein he had 
been instructed." The real question here is 
whether this profession be a genuine pro- 
fession on the part of a Christian waiter of 
the first age, or, in other words, whether the 
document which it opens, or its main sub- 
stance, can be traced up to the first century, 
rather than the more technical inquiry as to 
whether the writer was St Luke, the com- 
panion of St Paul, or some other. Even in 
the case of the fourth Gospel, the fact of its 
existence in the end of the apostolic age is 
really the chief question. Supposing this 
settled, its authorship — whether by St John, 
or partly by St John and partly by some 
Christian writer of his school — would not 
have an important bearing on our subject. 

The nature of the evidence, then, which 
must be sought to establish the genuineness of 
the Gospels, is obvious. We must get traces 
of their existence in the first Christian age. 
They profess to tell us what Christ taught and 
did. Their testimony is by no means the 
only testimony to our Lord's miracles, espe- 
cially to the great miracle of His resurrection; 
but hitherto the credibility of these miracles 
has chiefly been rested on the credibility of 
the four narratives which profess to give us 
an account of them. If the credibility of these 



78 BEGINNING LIFE. 

narratives were seriously impaired — if it were 
true, as recently maintained, that there is no 
" trace even of the existence of our Gospels 
for a century and a half after the events they 
record," * and " no evidence of any value con- 
necting these works with the writers to whom 
they are .popularly attributed,'' then the evi- 
dence for the divine origin of Christianity 
vv'ould seriously suffer. Even in such a case 
it would by no means be destroyed, as we 
shall afterwards particularly point out. The 
conclusion of the same writer, that in such an 
event " the claims of Christianity to be con- 
sidered a Divine Revelation must necessarily 
be disallowed,'' f would not necessarily follow. 
Certain elements of evidence would remain of 
a very insurmountable character, save to one 
who is prepared to admit anything rather than 
the possibility of the supernatural. Yet it 
cannot be denied that the supposed originality 
of the substantive narrative of the Gospels is a 
vital element in what are commonly known 
as the '* Christian Evidences," and that it is 
of the utmost importance that we should be 
able to trace their existence onwards to the 
apostolic age, or reasonably near to the 
origin of Christianity itself. The question 
presents difficulties which will sufficiently 
appear in the sequel ; but a fair statement of 

* Supernatural Religion, ii. 481-2. f lb,, ii. 482. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 79 

it will be found, beyond any doubt, to leave 
the balance of probability not on the negaitve, 
but on the positive side. 

Up to a certain point there is of course no 
question. It is unnecessary to collect evidence 
for the existence of the Gospels from writers 
such as Origen (d. 254) in the third century. 
No one doubts, or can doubt, that the four 
Gospels not only existed in the time of Origen, 
but were held by the Church then in the same 
veneration as now. He speaks of them in a 
passage preserved by Eusebius* as "the four 
Gospels, which and which alone are accepted 
without question by the Church of God under 
Heaven,'" and he proceeds in the same pas- 
sage to particularise each Gospel in succes- 
sion. Elsewhere he speaks of them still 
m.ore definitely, and enlarges upon their pecu- 
liarities, and especially upon the divine excel- 
lency of St John's Gospel.f The mere fact 
that Origen wrote commentaries and homilies 
on the Gospels, and prepared a text of them 
as of other parts of Scripture, places their 
general acceptance in the Church in his time 
beyond all controversy. 

In ascending the course of Christian his- 
tory to the age immediately preceding that of 
Origen, or the last quarter of the second cen- 

* Hist. Eccles., vi. 25. 

f Comment, on John, t. iv. p. 4, 



8o BEGINNING LIFE. 

tury, we have no less satisfactory evidence 
that the four Gospels, under the names of their 
reputed authors, were then universally ac- 
cepted by the Church. All the notable Chris- 
tian writers of the time refer to them with- 
out hesitation as authoritative documents. 
Irenaeus not only mentions the four, and 
quotes from each repeatedly, especially in the 
third book of his famous treatise 'Against 
Heresies,' but he gives a special account of 
their origin in the beginning of the same 
book. He says that *' Matthew, among the 
Hebrews, published a written Gospel in their 
own language, whilst Peter and Paul were 
preaching at Rome, and founding the Church 
there ; and after their departure, Mark, the dis- 
ciple and interpreter of Peter, delivered to us 
in writing the things preached by Peter ; and 
Luke, the companion of Paul, put down in a 
book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, 
John, the disciple of the Lord, who leaned upon 
His breast, likewise published a Gospel while 
he dwelt at Ephesus in Asia.'' * Again he tells 
us that " the Gospels can be neither more nor 
fewer in number than they are . . . that the 
Logos, the framer of all things, having mani- 
fested Himself to men, gave us the Gospel 
fourfold in form, but bound together by one 
spirit."t There is more of the same sort as to 

* Iren., iii. i. f lb., iii. il. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 8i 

the necessarily quadriform or fourfold character 
of the Gospel, a mode of argument more in- 
genious than satisfactory ; but the very inge- 
nuity of which only brings more prominently 
into relief the idea of four Gospels, such as we 
h^ve now, and four Gospels alone, being at 
this time universally accepted by the Church. 

The testimony of Irenaeus is strongly cor- 
roborated by that of Clement of Alexandria. 
In a passage preserved by Eusebius * it is 
distinctly stated by this great teacher, that 
" the Gospels containing the genealogies were 
written first ; " that the Gospel of Mark was 
written while Peter was publicly preaching 
the Word at Rome ; and that " John, last of all 
. . being urged by his friends and divinely 
moved by the Spirit, composed a spiritual 
Gospel.'' Further, the same father, in one of 
his extant writings, discriminates betwixt an 
apocryphal Gospel " to the Egyptians " and 
"the four Gospels delivered to us.'^f 

The evidence of Tertullian, if less explicit, 
is hardly less satisfactory. In his treatise 
against Marcion,:J: he speaks of the authors of 
the Gospels as partly "apostles " and partly 
"apostolic men.'' Among the former, he 
says, "John and Matthew inspire us with 

* Hist. EccL, lib. vi. c. 14. 
f Stroraata, 1. iii. § 13. 
X L. iv. c. 2. 

F 



82 BEGINNING LIFE. 

faith;" among the latter, *^Luke and Mark 
renew it/' The Gospel is to him, as to 
Irenaeus, under its fourfold form a recog- 
nised document or deed of authority for the 
Church.* The fact of the Churches having 
received the Gospels and held them sacred-, is 
an evidence of their having been delivered by 
the apostles. The genuine Gospel of Luke is 
contrasted with the mutilated Gospel of the 
same name used by Marcion, as having been 
received by all the Churches founded by the 
apostles, and those in fellowship with them, 
"from its first publication." "The same autho- 
rity,'' he adds, "of the Apostolic Churches 
will support the other Gospels, which in like 
manner we have from them and according to 
their copies." t 

In order to discern the full force of this 
evidence, it is necessary to notice the position 
and representative character of the men who 
gave it. Irenseus was a native of Asia Minor, 
probably of Smyrna, and was born certainly 
not later than the year 140. He had been, he 
himself tells us in a fragment of a letter pre- 
served by Eusebius, J a pupil of Polycarp, who 

* *' Evangelicum Instrumentum," Adv. Marc, iv. 2. It is to 
be remembered that Tertullian was a rhetor, or professional 
lawyer. 

t '*Per illas et secundum illas" (ecclesias), Adv. Marc, 
1. iv. \ 5- 

t Hist. Eccl., lib. v. c. 20. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 83 

was, again, a pupil of St John. Those early 
days he recalled, he says, ^'more vividly than 
things which had lately happened . . . how 
the blessed Polycarp used to sit and discourse, 
and his going forth and his coming in, and 
the fashion of his life and appearance of his 
person, and the discourses which he used to 
make to the congregation, and how he used 
to tell of his conversation with St John and 
with the rest of those who had seen the 
Lord ; and how he used to relate from 
memory their sayings, and what those things 
were which he had heard from them con- 
cerning the Lord and concerning His miracles 
and teaching." Thus trained in the school 
of Polycarp, Irenseus passed to the south of 
Gaul, thence to Rome, where he seems to 
have remained some time, and again back to 
Lyons as bishop, after the martyrdom there of 
the venerable Pothinus. Who could have 
known better as to the Gospels, or had better 
opportunities of judging as to their reception ? 
Can we suppose that what was so venerated 
by him in his maturity — say about igo, the 
latest date to which even the author of ^Su- 
pernatural Religion' would carry back the 
treatise ^Against Heresies' — was unknown to 
him in his youth, or known only as produc- 
tions that had recently come into vogue ? 
Can we imagine that Polycarp knew nothing 



84 BEGINNING LIFE. ' 

of Gospels which were held in such sacred 
respect by his pupil ? Where, except from 
his master, could Irenseus have learned this 
respect ? 

Clement of Alexandria no more stands alone 
than Irenaeus. He is supposed to have been 
a native of Athens, and after many travels in 
search of wisdom and learning, to haye settled 
at Alexandria before 190, as teacher in the 
school of catechumens there. He was at least 
the second teacher in this school, having been 
preceded by Pantaenus. Is it possible to 
doubt that the manner in which Clement 
speaks of the Gospels was already a tradition 
in the Alexandrian School ? And can we 
imagine such a tradition to have grown up 
within thirty or forty years ? 

The position of Tertullian is equally signifi- 
cant. He virtually speaks not only for him- 
self, but for the Carthaginian Church. He 
speaks, moreover, as one who looks back to 
an authoritative tradition, to an '' Evangelical 
Instrument " capable of being produced in 
evidence of the facts which it contains. The 
very ground on which he concludes against 
the Gospel of Marcion is its recent inven- 
tion, in contrast to the unmutilated Gospel 
of St Luke as universally received by the 
Churches. Is it for a moment credible, 
then, that this Gospel was after all a recent 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 85 

discovery or fabrication — in other words, 
that there was no trace of its exist e7ice for 
a century a7id a half after the events it 
records ? 

The evidence even so far as now presented 
appears fatal to this astounding statement. 
Every one of the writers whom we have quoted 
speak of the four Gospels not merely with 
respect, but with a respect engendered by tra- 
ditional habit. They betray no questioning, 
and enter into no argument in proof of what 
they say. They are already the dogmatists 
of a new era, and the four Gospels are to them 
an authoritative ^^ canon '' beyond which there 
is no appeal. This is the tone alike of all, at 
such widely separated centres of Christian 
civilisation as Asia Minor, Alexandria, Car- 
thage, Southern Gaul. Is it possible to con- 
ceive the growth of such a widespread Chris- 
tian tradition within the course of a single 
generation ? One hundred and fifty years after 
the events recorded in the Gospels would carry 
us down at least to a time when Irenseus was 
thirty-five or forty years of age — when he had 
left Asia Minor, and was about to become 
Bishop of Lyons.* About the same time 
Clement was completing his spiritual and 
theological education, and in the course of 

* One hundred and seventy-seven is the commonly assigned 
date of his appointment to the bishopric. 



86 BEGINNING LIFE. 

his travels collecting evidence of that uni- 
versal tradition as to the Gospels, which he 
afterwards relates. TertuUian, if he had not 
become known as a rhetor and a lawyer, 
must have been well advanced in his legal 
studies, for by the end of the century he had 
been some time married,* and had written 
many of his treatises, amongst others his 
^Apology.' In the face of an accumulated 
testimony of this kind, gathered from such 
diverse sources, and representing the voice of 
the Church from such widespread centres, it 
is simply incredible that our Gospels could 
have come into existence during the earlier 
years of these men, or even in the generation 
which preceded them. 

This seems the very least conclusion to 
w^hich the foregoing evidence binds us. What 
had become an accepted tradition in the age 
of Irenaeus, Clement, and Tertullian, could not 
possibly have originated in their youth. We 
might go further, and maintain that it could 
not even have originated in the youth of 
Polycarp, the teacher of Irenaeus. But it is 
unnecessary to go so far as this in the mean- 
time. All that is urged, and it appears to us 
irrefragably urged, is that the universal ad- 

* See the commencement of the treatise addressed ' To his 
wife/ one of his pre-Montanist writings. Tertullian became a 
Mbntanist, it is supposed, about 202. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 87 

mission in the end of the second century, that 
there zvere four^ and only four Gospels^ as at 
prese7it^ attributed respectively to the same aiithors 
as at presenty is quite inconsistent with the 
idea that these Gospels were unknown, ot 
not even in existence, about the middle of 
the century. The manner in w^hich they are 
spoken of, the respect aijd authority which 
had gathered around them, presuppose on the 
contrary a long anterior existence. For such 
veneration is only the growth of years, and 
such authority the slow acquisition of com- 
mon habit and belief. In short, the amount 
and character of the testimony cited reflect 
the force of the testimony far beyond its own 
age, and enable us to advance to the next 
period in our upward ascent of the course 
of Christian history with firmness and con- 
fidence. 

Carrying with us, then, this advantage, we 
make our next step to what is known as the 
" age of the Apologists," or specially the age 
of Justin Martyr (120-170). Justin is the really 
significant figure of the time, and it is unneces- 
sary for our purpose to consider the fragments 
of evidence associated with other names com- 
monly grouped around him — Tatian (his pupil), 
Quadratus and Aristides of Athens, Athena- 
goras, and Theophilus of Antioch. Our aim 
must be to get traces of the four Gospels, or 



88 BEGINNING LIFE. 

of any of them, along the middle and early 
period of the century represented by Justin 
and his contemporaries. 

It is obvious, however, that the further we 
ascend, the traces for which we search are 
likely to become less definite. The Canon of 
the New Testament, no less than that of the 
Jewish Scriptures, required time for develop- 
ment. The four Gospels, as we have seen, were 
all alike acknowledged, and their respective 
character appreciated, in the last quarter of the 
second century. It has been fairly argued that 
this implies a long anterior existence. But as 
we draw nearer to their origin, it cannot be ex- 
pected that we should find these four Gospels 
standing forth together in the same clear and 
authentic light. As they originated from 
diverse sources, some earlier and some later, 
and represented diverse sections of the Church, 
they will be naturally heard of and quoted in 
very different quarters, — some in this quarter 
and some in that, and some more clearly and 
definitely than others. And especially is this 
to be expected when we take into account 
the circumstances of the time we have now 
reached. 

During the middle and early part of the 
second century, the history of the Church is 
involved in great obscurity. It was, as we 
have said, the ^^ age of the Apologists/' when 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 89 

Christianity was on its defence for a bare 
existence. It was, moreover, the age of the 
Catacombs, when the Church in many places 
was barely seen above ground — although 
growing powerfully in secret. Great spiritual 
forces were everywhere at work, but nowhere 
clearly seen in their true character and conflict 
with one another. How little, for example, do 
we know of Gnosticism, which was yet plainly 
a powerful influence m the intellectual world 
— how little also of Ebionism, or that ancient 
Unitarianism, which was so prominent a 
feature of the Jewish Churches ! Onwards, in 
j-act, from the death of St Paul, in 65 or 69 at 
latest, the Church is only seen at uncertain 
intervals, slowly emerging from the darkness, 
and taking its place as a distinct institution 
in the world, apart from the Judaism in which 
it had been cradled, and the great systems of 
oriental speculation, which had sought to imi- 
tate much of its language, and a certain side 
of its thought. There cannot be said to have 
been, on the part of the Roman world, any 
clear recognition of Christians as distinct from 
Jews, before the well-known letter of the 
younger Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, in the 
year no. And it was probably not till some 
time later, namely, the disastrous termina- 
tion of the second Jewish revolt, under Bar- 
Cochab, about 135, that this distinction was 



90 BEGINNING LIFE. 

definitely established, and impressed both 
upon the general consciousness and the con- 
sciousness of the Church itself. Little is known 
of the history of this revolt, but the fact of it, 
and its decisive influence upon the fortunes of 
the Christian Church, are beyond question. 
It was a purely Jewish outbreak, from which 
the Christians everywhere kept aloof, and 
w^hen the tumult cleared away, and the ven- 
geance of the Imperial armies were glutted 
in the slaughter, it is said, of nearly 600,000 
Jews, the line of Christian history is seen for 
the first time fully disentangled from Judaism, 
and running distinct by itself. 

It must never be forgotten how scanty is 
the literature of t?ie Church during all this 
time, and that even such literature as survives 
has. little bearing upon our subject. A few 
letters and treatises comprise it all. Even of 
the Apologists, save Justin Martyr, we have 
only scanty remains. The Apologies of 
Quadratus and Aristides of Athens have 
both perished. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, 
wrote numerous works, but nothing remains 
save an oration preserved in a Syriac trans- 
lation. Hegesippus, about the middle of the 
century, or immediately subsequent, compiled 
five books or memoirs of the history of the 
Church, which, according to Jerome, gave a 
complete account of it, from the death of our 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 91 

Lord to his own time ; but all are lost with 
the exception of a few detached passages 
preserved by Eusebius. Papias, in the earlier 
part of the century, composed an ' Exposition 
of the Oracles of the Lord ; ' but, with the ex- 
ception of a single passage, afterwards to be 
considered, we know nothing of it. Two or 
three small volumes sum up the whole 
Christian literature of this truly dark age of 
the Church. It is this obscurity which has 
given such scope to endless theories as to the 
formation of the New Testament canon, but 
it is also a fair inference that the scantiness 
of sources of Christian information may have 
deprived us of much evidence that would have 
strengthened our position. 

The evidence as to the origin and reception 
of the Gospels has suffered from a further cause. 
These several narratives represented different 
sides of the early Church. They mirror its 
manifold view of Christ, and were identified 
with the preaching of different teachers, who 
did not always see things in the same light. 
There can be no question of such distinctions 
in the Church of the first and second centu- 
ries, however little we m.ay be disposed to 
allow the conclusions which the Tubingen 
critics have based upon them. Nor can there 
be any question of the real rivalries that to 
some extent underlay these distinctions, and 



92 BEGINNING LIFE. 

especially of the antagonism that prevailed, 
often violently, betwixt the Jewish and Hel- 
lenic pa^rties. The Church of Jerusalem never 
fully understood St Paul, and notwithstanding 
his great labours, it probably retained its 
pre-eminence for many years. To it belonged 
the glory of the original Twelve, and all the 
prestige of inherited privilege, with which 
it parted most reluctantly. The Hellenic 
party, in addition to the great name of the 
Apostle of the Gentiles, had the advantage 
everywhere in culture, liberality, and intelli- 
gence. The march of events, moreover, was 
on its side. But during a lengthened period 
the two parties were probably more closely 
balanced than we are apt to suppose, and 
continued to regard each other with unabated 
jealousy. This jealousy naturally extended to 
the books or scriptures received by each. The 
Hebrew Gospel was mainly, if not exclusively, 
recognised within the circle of the Hebrew 
Churches ; the Gospel of St Luke, again, 
within the circle of the Pauline Churches. 
In short, it is to be remembered that the 
period was one not merely of formation, but 
of ferment, and in some degree of conflict 
wdthin the Church, as well as of oppression 
and darkness without. All was as yet un- 
settled. The New Testament Scriptures, 
and the Gospels amongst them, were only 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 93 

growing towards catholic recognition. It 
would be absurd, therefore, to expect such 
testimonies regarding them as we have 
hitherto found. On the contrary, it follows 
almost as a matter of course, that the allu- 
sions to the Gospels in this indefinite and 
uncertain age of Christian history, should 
be less definite and satisfactory than be- 
fore. 

This is the true key, we apprehend, to the 
change in the character of the Evidence thai 
now awaits us, and the comparative lack of 
the distinct mention of the four Gospels by 
name in the earlier writers of the second 
century. Let us, with this explanation, turn 
to examine the language of Justin Martyr in 
its bearing on our subject. 

Justin was of Greek descent, but born in 
Syria, at Flavia Neapolis, a Roman colony 
founded by Vespasian near the site of the 
ancient Sichem. His birth was probably as 
early as the commencement of the century. 
He perished as a martyr in Rome about 166. 
Originally a heathen, he became a convert to 
Christianity after studying the prevailing sects 
of philosophy, the Stoics, Peripatetics, Pytha- 
goreans, and Platonists. Platonism seemed 
for a time to satisfy his longings after truth ; 
but meeting, as he himself describes,^ an aged 

♦ Dial. c. Trypho, iii. 



94 BEGINNING LIFE. 

man of meek and venerable appearance, he 
was exhorted by him to turn from self-reflec- 
tion and philosophic cogitation, to the study 
of the prophets and the Revelation made 
known in Jesus Christ. '^ Pray," said the 
venerable figure, that '^ above all things the 
gates of light may be opened to you." 
Straightway a fire was kindled in his soul, 
and he became possessed with '' a love of the 
prophets, and of those men who were friends 
of Christ;'* and revolving in his mind the 
words that he had heard, he found at length 
in the Christian Revelation the satisfaction 
and peace that he desired. So he became a 
Christian philosopher, and travelled far and 
wide disseminating his new convictions. It 
is at Ephesus, in the public walk or xystus, 
that he narrates to Trypho, the Jew, this ac- 
count of his conversion, and the Dialogue 
which he held on the occasion remains 
amongst the most interesting of his writings, 
two Apologies, in addition to this Dialogue, 
may be said to complete his genuine writings, 
the first and longer one, which is alone of 
much importance, being addressed to Anto- 
ninus Pius, and the second addressed to the 
Roman Senate. Considerable diversity of opi- 
nion exists as to the exact dates to be assigned 
to these writings; but the larger xA^pology 
is not supposed to be later than 145 or 147, 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 95 

and the Dialogue a few years subsequent to 
this time. Even the author of ^ Supernatural 
Religion ' does not suggest a later date than 
147 for the Apology, and Bunsen carries 
it up as far as 139, the year in which the title 
^' Pius '' was first acceded to Antoninus. 

Both in the Apology and in the Dialogue, 
Justin makes numerous references to the facts 
of Christ's life, and quotes numerous sayings 
ascribed to Him. In the former there are 
fifty, and in the latter seventy direct allusions 
to the Gospel history; and. three chapters espe- 
cially of the first Apology, the fifteenth, six- 
teenth, and seventeenth, are composed almost 
exclusively of passages answering generally 
to passages in the Gospels of St Matthew, St 
Mark, and St Luke. These and other passages 
appear to be quoted; and elsewhere— twice 
in the Apology (c. 66, 67), and no fewer than 
fifteen times in the Dialogue — he clearly 
indicates, as the definite source of his inform- 
ation and teaching regarding the life of our 
Lord, certain ' Memoirs of the Apostles.' * 
Generally he uses the full expression ' Me- 
moirs of the Apostles,' or 'Memoirs composed 
by them,' ix, the apostles ; in a few instances 
simply the expression ' Memoirs.' f Once he 

* 'ATTOfJLVrjfJlOVtVfiaTa TUtV CLTTOaToXiOV. 

f Twelve times the fuller expression ; five times m the 
Dialogue the simple expression. 



96 BEGINNING LIFE. 

says that these ^Memoirs ' were "called Gos- 
pels *' (ApoL, c. 66), and once he speaks of a 
saying of Christ as being "in the Gospel'' 
(Dial., c. loo). In another place (Dial., c. io6) 
he seems to speak specially of the Memoirs of 
St Peter; but it maybe doubtful there whether 
the singular pronoun refers to St Peter or to 
Christ, and it has even been suggested that 
the singular is a corruption for the plural pro- 
noun,* and that the reference is therefore 
general, as in other cases. In still another 
significant passage f he states that the Me- 
moirs " were composed by Christ's apostles, 
and men who followed them.'* Moreover, he 
says expressly, J that the ^ Memoirs of the 
Apostles ' were read in the Sunday assem- 
blies of the Christians, together with " the 
writings of the prophets/' *' as long as time 
permits.'' 

Such is a simple statement of the main facts 
in Justin's testimony. The question of course 
is as to the identity of Justin's Memoirs with 
our present. Gospels. It has been argued by 
the author of ^ Supernatural Religion ' and 
by others, that the passages quoted by Justin 
present so much verbal discrepancy from the 
corresponding passages in the Synoptic Gos- 
pels, that they cannot be supposed to be taken 

* Otto in loc. t Dial., c. 103. 

X ApoL, c. 67. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 97 

from them. It is further maintained that facts 
are mentioned by Justin, in the life of our 
Lord, which are not found in our Gospels, and 
that it must be consequently concluded that 
he possessed other and distinct sources of in- 
formation — and that in short the * Memoirs ' 
to which he appeals were not our Gospels, at 
least in their present form. It is obvious how 
difficult it must be to settle beyond contro- 
versy such a question as this. But the fol- 
lowing considerations may serve to show 
beyond reasonable doubt, that the balance 
of evidence is strongly in favour of the con- 
clusion that the ' Memoirs ' referred to by 
Justin could have been no other than our 
Gospels. 

I. It must be admitted that the passages 
quoted by Justin fail in verbal coincidence 
with the text of our Gospels. It is impos- 
sible to exhibit here the differences in detail ; 
this can only be appreciated by a comparison 
of the passages in the original language. 
But the following specimen, taken from the 
list of parallel sentences selected by the 
author of ' Supernatural Religion,' may give 
the general reader some idea of the extent 
to which they differ. Our Lord, for example, 
is represented in St Matthew, v. I'^y as 
saying, ^^ But I say unto you. That every one 
that looketh on a woman to lust after her 

G 



98 BEGINNING LIFE. 

hath committed adultery with her already 
in his heart.'* Justin * opens a long 
cluster of sayings which he attributes to 
Jesus as follows : ^' He (Jesus) then spoke of 
chastity. ^ Whosoever may have gazed on a 
woman to lust after her, hath committed 
adultery already in the heart before God!" 
Again, in the same chapter of St Matthew, 
in the following verse we read, ^* If thy right 
eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from 
thee/' Justin has simply,f *' If thy right eye 
offend thee, cut it out,'' Again, Matthew xvi. 
26, '^For what shall a man be profited if he 
shall gain the whole world but lose his 
soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange 
for his soul ?'* Justin has, J '^For what is a man 
profited if he shall gain the whole world but 
destroy his soul ? or what shall he give in 
exchange for it ? ** It is needless to multiply 
examples. It is sufiiciently evident that if 
Justin quotes from St Matthew, he does not 
quote with verbal accuracy. But then it is 
equally evident that he does not profess to 
do so. His object is to set before the heathen 
emperor the substance of our Lord's teaching. 
In doing so it was natural that he should 
refer to his sources of information under the 
general name of ^Memoirs,' rather than the 
special name of * Gospels.' His language 
* I ApoL, 15. f lb. X lb. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 99 

implies that this latter name was already 
familiar amongst Christians ; but the former 
designation would be the more intelligible to 
the emperor and the Gentile world at large. 
He quotes apparently in many cases not 
from a manuscript before him, but from 
memory. This is clear from the fact that 
his quotations of the same passage differ, 
and that he interweaves words found in 
different parts of the Gospels, as weli as 
condenses and adapts passages to suit his 
special purpose. Moreover, it is found in 
reference to the Old Testament, in the case 
of which his quotations are confessedly taken 
from manuscripts, that he quotes with much 
of the same degree of verbal incorrectness. 
He mixes up sentences from the same prophet, 
and sometimes from different prophets, and he 
compresses and rearranges words very much at 
his pleasure, in order to bring out more fully 
his meaning. It cannot be expected that he 
would qubte the Gospels with more respect 
, to literal accuracy than the prophetic writings 
of the Old Testament. 

Then, as to the few discrepancies of 
which so much has been made, they have 
been sunjmed up by a most impartial wTiter,* 

* Dr Donaldson, * Hist, of Christian Literature and Doctrine 
from the Death of tlie Apostles to the Nicene Council/ voL 
ii. 330- 



loo BEGINNING LIFE. 

in the few following sentences : — " Justin 
quotes a saying of Christ, ' In whatsoever I 
find you in that I will judge you/ which is 
not found in our Gospels. He makes the 
voice from Heaven at the baptism say, ^ Thou 
art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.' 
He also says that fire was lighted in the 
Jordan on that occasion. And he mentions 
that Christ made yokes and ploughs. The 
first passage is supposed by some to be taken 
from the Gospel of the Hebrews, but it is as 
likely to have been handed down by tradi- 
tion. The second passage is found in some 
manuscripts of the New Testament, though 
not in the oldest, and is recognised by some 
other Christian writers. It was found, ac- 
cording to Epiphanius, in the Gospel accord- 
ing to the Hebrews. Of the third, Justin 
does not expressly say that it was in the 
Gospels. And the last, though found in the 
Gospel of Thomas, may have been a true 
tradition handed down and believfed in the 
Church. These then,^' Dr Donaldson adds, 
** are not sufficient proofs that Justin used 
any other Gospel.'' 

2. Add to these considerations the diffi- 
culties of the contrary opinion. Suppose that 
the ' Memoirs ' quoted by Justin were not our 
Synoptic Gospels, or did not embrace them, 
it ib yet quite evident that they were sacred 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. loi 

and authoritative writings. They were read 
along with the writings of the prophets in 
the assemblies of the Christians every Sun- 
day. They were written by apostles and " by 
men who followed them." They contained an 
ample narrative of the facts contained in our 
Gospels. They w^ere called ' Gospels/ and yet 
also spoken of as ^' the Gospel." What could 
have become of writings thus distinct from 
our Gospels and yet acknowledged by the 
Church, known to Justin, and yet mentioned 
by no one but him ? How can we conceive 
Irenaeus, within twenty years of Justin, taking 
no account of them, and apparently entirely 
ignorant of them ? Everything seems against 
such a supposition. It has been suggested,* 
indeed, that the ^ Memoirs ' of Justin were 
identical with the Gospel according- to the 
Hebrews, which plays such a frequent part 
in the literature of the second century ; and a 
certain affinity is admitted to have existed 
betwixt this Gospel and our St Matthew, 
although their identity is denied. 

It is impossible to enter into the special 
discussion as to a Hebrew Gospel and its 
relation to our canonical Gospels ; and it is 
quite unnecessary for our purpose to do so. 
It may be only noted in passing that, accord- 
ing to such an admission, there is at least 

* By the author of * Supernatural Religion/ as by others. 



102 BEGINNING LIFE. 

one Gospel stretching back to the original 
Jewish Church, whether this Gospel be our 
St Matthew, or the original of our St 
Matthew (according to the opinion of the 
early Church), or a separate Gospel which 
has perished, and that this Hebrew Gospel, 
supposing it to have been that which Justin 
used, must have contained the same, or almost 
the same, miraculous facts as our present 
Gospels. If this be so, we have at least one 
continuous thread of evangelical testimony 
to those facts. 

But the language of Justin seems plainly 
inconsistent with such a view. For he ap- 
peals not only to one, but to several apostolic 
sources ; he speaks expressly not only of a 
Gospel but of Gospels — of ' Memoirs ' proceed- 
ing not merely from one apostle, but from 
apostles and others who followed them. 
Many of the passages, moreover, cited by him 
correspond more closely with the language of 
St Luke than that of St Matthew, or the 
supposed Gospel according to the Hebrews. 
And some of the fairest critics of the extreme 
school* even admit that his language in 
certain places cannot be explained without 
recognising his acquaintance with the Gospel 
of St John, no less than of the Synoptic 
Gospels. Altogether, the evidence seems 

* Keim and Hilgenfeld. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 103 

abundantly convincing that the ^ Memoirs ' 
of Justin must have been identical with 
our Gospels ; or, at least, as Dr Donaldson 
says,^' " must have embraced the Gospels 
of Matthew and Luke, and, we may add, 
Mark." 

Let us, then, consider the force of this 
evidence, and how far it carries us. The 
Gospels of Justin were obviously not merely 
accepted, but sacred records. They had 
acquired such authority in the Church as to 
be read regularly at the solemn meetings of 
the Christian congregations. They could 
hardly have attained *such authority if they 
had come into existence during any period of 
Justin's life^ But the early limit of his career 
may be said to carry us to the verge of the 
apostolic age. There is every presumption, 
therefore, that the apostolic memoirs which 
Justin heard read on Sunday, and whose con- 
tents w^ere so familiar to him, must have been 
no less familiar to his older contemporaries, 
Papias and Polycarp, and even to Ignatius, 
Barnabas, and the Roman Clement of a still 
preceding generation. 

Of these men, with one exception, it is 
unnecessary to speak particularly. Both 
Polycarp and Ignatius are supposed to have 
been disciples of St John, and Clement and 

* Hist, of Christian Literature, ii. 330. 



I04 BEGINNING LIFE. 

Barnabas come within the Apostolic Age 
itself. The letters of Ignatius are themselves 
unfortunately so much a subject of dispute, 
that their evidence is of little weight, even 
were it more important than it is. But the 
truth is, that such sayings of our Lord as 
occur in these earlier fathers can hardly be 
called evidence of the existence of the Gospels. 
They may have been taken from the Gospels ; 
and most candid readers would allow that at 
least in the letter of Polycarp to the Philip- 
pian Church, and that of Clement to the 
Church of Corinth, there are to be found 
quotations both from St Matthew and St 
Luke. But from the very nature of the case 
this cannot be clearly established. These 
men were themselves so near to the Evan- 
gelical testimony, that they probably knew it 
by heart rather than by hook. They may have 
written, therefore, as they spoke, out of the 
fulness of their own knowledge communicated 
to them orally by the Apostles or their 
companions, rather than with reference to 
any written documents which merely em- 
bodied what was already familiar to them. 
It was not so much any record of Christ's 
sayings to which their thoughts turned, as 
the sayings and doings themselves surviving 
in the Christian consciousness of the time, 
and which they had learned at the feet of 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 105 

those who directly reported the one and were 
witnesses of the other. 

Of Papias, however, the contemporary of 
Polycarp, a single passage has been preserved 
which is of unique significance in regard to 
our subject, and which therefore claims a few 
vvords of special attention. 

Papias, there is good reason to believe, 
was grown up to youth or early manhood 
before the close of the first century. He was 
greatly interested in traditions concerning 
our Lord, and whenever he had opportunity 
made diligent inquiry regarding them — "what 
Andrew or Peter or Philip saidy or James or 
John or Matthew, or any other of the Lord's 
disciples ; and also," he adds, " as to what 
Aristion and the Presbyter John, the Lord's 
disciples, say."'^ It has been pointed outf 
that this statement implies a distinction be- 
twixt the older disciples (who were probably 
dead at the time Papias was writing) and 
two others, Aristion and John the Presbyter, 
still living, with whom personally Papias had 
held communication. At the utmost, there- 
fore, there is but a single link betwixt this 
father and the Apostolic Age. If not a dis- 
ciple of St John (w^hich has been disputed), he 
was certainly a companion of those who had 

* Euseb. H. E., iii. 39. 

+ Westcott, Hist, of Canon, 69. 



io6 BEGINNING LIFE. 

lived with the apostles or heard them preach 
The passage which has been preserved from 
his lost work entitled, ^' An Exposition of 
Oracles of the Lord/'* is cited by Eusebius 
in the third book of his history, and is 
as follows : ^' John the Presbyter used to 
say, ' Mark, being the interpreter of Peter, 
wrote accurately whatsoever things he re- 
membered, although not [recording] in order 
the things said or done by Christ ; for 
he neither heard the Lord nor followed 
Him ; but subsequently, as I said, was with 
Peter, who adapted his teaching to the 
wants of those who heard him, but not as 
making a connected narrative of the Lord's 
discourses/ . . . And concerning Matthew he 
said this : * Matthew composed the Oracles in 
the Hebrew dialect, and each one interpreted 
them as he was able/ " 

It is needless to say that these statements 
of Papias have been the subject of much 
criticism, and that their supposed reference 
to our two first Gospels is vehemently con- 
tested. It is said that the manner in which 
Mark is spoken of as writing down his remi- 
niscences of St Peter's preaching is incon- 
sistent with the character of pur second 
Gospel, which is not specially deficient in 
connection or order. And further, that the 

* AoyiLJV Kvpiaiciov k^riyrjaig, Euseb., iii. 39, 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 107 

expression logia^ or " oracles/' does not 
properly apply to our present Gospel of St 
Matthew, but rather to a mere collection of 
our Lord's discourses. There appears to be 
more ingenuity than force in such arguments, 
and most unprejudiced minds will see in the 
language of Papias an undoubted reference to 
our Gospel of St Mark, as well as to an 
original Hebrew Gospel. The second evan- 
gelist does not profess any more than the 
others to give a complete or chronologically 
connected account of our Lord's life or dis- 
courses. The language cited from John the 
Presbyter seems, therefore, fairly applicable 
to our present Gospel of St. Mark. And, on 
the other hand, it is held by many that the 
expression logia may be understood in the 
general sense of ^* Scriptures," * and that, in 
fact, it does not properly bear the exclusive 
meaning of " discourses." 

But, supposing that there were more force 
in such objections than there really is, it is to 
be observed that they do not vitally affect 
our conclusion. Let it be admitted that St 
Mark's record of St Peter's preaching, as 
known to Papias, was not in all respects the 

* "This use of the word,'* says Mr. Westcott (Hist, of 
Canon, p. 73), **is fully established ; and I am not aware," he 
adds, **tnat Xoyia can be used in the sense of Xo^oi^ ** dis- 
courses.'* 



io8 BEGINNING LIFE. 

same as our present Gospel under his name, 
or that the '' oracles '* composed by St 
Matthew in Hebrew cannot be held to be 
identical with our present first Gospel, it is 
yet impossible to doubt that these earlier 
records m.ust have contained the same 
main facts and doctrines. The Gospels of 
Papias may not have been exactly the same 
as our Gospels, but the supernatural story 
which the one contains must have been in 
the other. There may, in short, be uncer- 
tainties as to how far the literary form of the 
Gospels has varied. There may have been 
even addition to their substance or contents 
as they passed from Church to Church, and 
gathered in more fully the sacred traditions 
which had come down from the several 
apostles. The language of St Luke, in the 
opening of his Gospel, implies not merely that 
there was a floating mass of oral belief, but 
that many had undertaken to put it in 
writing. Such an accumulation of apostolical 
tradition, oral and written, may very well 
have passed only gradually into the com- 
pleted form of our present Gospels. Possibly 
they may not even have received their final 
touches of revision and arrangement from 
apostolic hands. Let this be granted. The 
unity of their respective authorship would be 
affected, but the originality of their main 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 109 

substance would not be destroyed. From 
first to last, through whatever change oi 
form or additions of material, they certainly 
embraced the same outline of supernatural 
incident. It is impossible to doubt this in 
the face of the facts of Christian history, the 
undoubted writings of St Paul, and the lives 
of such men as Barnabas, the Roman 
Clement, and Ignatius, and Papias himseli 
connecting the apostolic with the subsequent 
Christian age. The work and character of 
these men are unintelligible save in the view 
oi the fads contained in the Gospels. 

It is of great importance to fix atten- 
tion upon this point, because two questions 
essentially distinct are apt to be confounded 
in the controversy which has raged around 
the Gospels — the questions, namely, of in- 
tegrity of form and of originality of sub- 
stance. A narrative may have been amplified 
and modified in form ; narratives like the 
Gospels could hardly, up to a certain period 
when the life of personal tradition had 
died out, escape such a process of accre- 
tion and development. But this is some- 
thing entirely different from the process 
of invention which is supposed in all the 
Tubingen criticisms. The motif of this school, 
more than anything else, is the idea that the 
presence of miracle everywhere implies later 



no BEGINNING LIFE. 

invention. The Gospels are brought down in 
their origin to the middle of the second 
century in order that room may be given for 
the growth of the miraculous stories which 
they embody. It is no mere question of 
literary growth which is involved, but a 
question really of forgery or of blind cre- 
dulity in the interests of the Church. But, 
apart from all other reasons against such a 
view, there is not the slightest evidence that 
men like Papias or the Roman Clement, or 
still more, St Paul (whose four great epistles 
all admit to be genuine), believed less in the 
supernatural story of the Gospels than the 
men of the latter part of the second century. 
There is not only no evidence of a growth of 
legend regarding the supernatural character 
of Christ, but the case of St Paul alone settles 
definitely such a thing. There is no doubt of 
his historical position, of his width of know- 
ledge, of his intelligence and culture, and yet 
he is plainly as great a supernaturalist as 
St Matthew or St Peter, as represented by 
St Mark. 

In fine, whatever doubts may exist as to 
the precise origin of our present Gospels 
and the manner in which they have taken 
their present form, no doubt can reasonably 
be held that in their earliest as well as 
their latest form they told substantially 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. iii 

the same story; and that, if not neces- 
sarily in all things, yet in the main they 
bring us abreast of the first age of the 
Church. They run up the thread of Christian 
history to its source, although there might be 
doubts of their entirety as original documents 
complete from the hands of the apostles or 
those who were companions of the apostles. 
These doubts have been greatly exaggerated 
by modern criticism ; but even should there be 
any force in them, the substance of the evan- 
gelical history, not merely in one but in a 
manifold line, may be traced back to the 
apostolic age and firmly rooted in it. 

II. — Worth of the Apostolic Testimony. 

Supposing this to be the case, what is the 
position occupied by the inquirer r He stands 
face to face with the apostolic age. In the 
first Gospel he is carried into the midst of the 
early Jewish Churches. In the second he is 
placed beside St. Peter, and listens to the sub- 
stance of the Gospel which he delivered in 
his later years at Rome or elsewhere. In the 
third we have a digest by the companion of 
St. Paul, who says also that he himself had 
^' perfect understanding,'' or had carefully 
traced " all things from the first,'' and that on 
this account it seems good to him to write of 



1 1 2 BEGINNING LIFE. 

them "in order" to his friend Theophilus, 
that he might "know the certainty of those 
things wherein he had been instructed/' And 
in the fourth Gospel we have the direct testi- 
mony of one who professes to have been an 
eye-witness of what he describes. 

Important as the subject of the fourth Gos- 
pel is by itself, we have not thought it necessary 
in such a sketch as this to treat the subject 
separately, and mainly for the reason already 
indicated in dealing with the Gospels as a 
whole. In this Gospel, as in the others, there 
is plainly a nucleus of original narrative, 
whatever opinion we .may form of its com- 
position as a whole. So sceptical a critic as 
Dr Matthew Arnold has admitted this as 
beyond question ; and it is only possible to 
deny it by regarding the Gospel throughout 
as not merely an ingenious but unworthy for- 
gery. The writer professes himself to have 
been in the midst of the scenes that he de- 
scribes. Along with others his own eyes 
" beheld the glory as of the only begotten of 
the Father.'' ^ The wound in the side of 
Jesus was seen by him, and " he that saw it 
bare record, and his record is true ; and he 
knoweth that he saith true." f And again in the 
first Epistle, which is allowed on all hands to 
be by the same writer, the same personal wit- 

♦ John i. 14. -f John xix. 35. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 113 

ness-bearing is asserted in the most solemn 
manner. 

Not only so, but the Gospel everywhere 
confessedly bears the stamp of personal and 
local knowledge. There are numerous touches 
that can only be explained by reference to 
the personality of the writer, such as the con- 
cluding clause of the fourteenth chapter 
('^ Arise, let us go hence"). Everywhere, as 
Luthardt says, "we find perfectly defined lines 
and clear bright colours. The memory invo- 
luntarily throw^s into the picture certain con- 
crete features. Notice, for example, the names 
given which do not occur in the other Gospels, 
as that of Malchus (xviii. 10), and Nathanael, 
and Nicodemus ; and again the mention of 
the value of the ointment of spikenard that 
Mary of Bethany poured over our Lord. Such 
little hints best betray the eye-witness." The 
sketch of localities is no less vivid and minute! 
Jesus " comes back and forth over the lake of 
Galilee, from the shore to the height, and then 
to the synagogue at Capernaum. He knows that 
one can get there by boat or by land. He knows 
how far off the shores are.* He sketches for us 
in a few v/ords the valley of Sichem, between 
Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, with Jacob's well 
and the memory of the days of the patriarch.f 
As to the localities at Jerusalem — the Sheep- 

* John vi. t John iv. 5, et seq. 

H 



114 BEGINNING LIFE. 

gate, the Temple with the treasury in the court 
of the women, Solomon's Porch, the Valley 
of Kedron, and the Mount of Olives, the 
rooms in the High Priest's Palace, and the 
like*— his familiarity with them is that of 
a man who has seen them all with his own 
eyes/' f 

In short, the evidence of an original 
narrative element in this Gospel is over- 
whelming, even if we were forced to enter- 
tain doubts as to the later character of 
some of the lengthened discourses which it 
embodies. Here, as in the other Gospels, 
and still more even than in them, there is a 
substantive thread of history running direct 
into the heart of early Christianity, and 
bringing before us in fresh and powerful 
colours the Supernatural Life which they all 
depict. 

What then, we again ask, is the position of 
the inquirer ? Supposing, for the sake of 
illustration, we take the writer of the transpa- 
rently original narrative of the fourth Gospel. 
A single case will serve to give point to our 
argument and to bring it to a focus. Here, 
then, the inquirer finds himself in contact with 
one of the most apparently truthful and noble 
personalities that live in the page of history. 

* John V. 2* viii. 20 ; x. 23 ; xviii. I, 15. 
t Luthardt, St John, 174-5. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 115 

He finds himself in communion with a mind 
profound yet clear-sighted, faithful and enlight- 
ened, rational and observant, with an open 
eye for the truth of life and fact, as well as an 
inner eye for the truth of the spirit. " This is 
the disciple which testifieth of these things/' ^ 
It is impossible to doubt the sincerity of such 
an eye-witness. The facts, miraculous or 
otherwise, which he describes, cannot possibly 
have been doubtful to himself. The Super- 
natural Life in w^hose light he dwelt, whose 
activity he daily witnessed, was beyond all 
question to him a Supreme Reality. All 
idea of falsehood or imposture flees from 
contact with such a clear, direct, and earnest 
presence. 

But although there cannot be falsehood, 
may there not be delusion ? May not St John 
and the other apostles have been mistaken ? 
Certainly it is possible for the best and noblest 
men to be mistaken. A highly truthful and 
lofty nature is no guarantee against religious 
delusion, as many examples prove. Let us look 
carefully at this supposition and all that it in- 
volves in the light of our preceding argument. 
We have, as w^e believe, proved on sufficient 
evidence that there is in all the four Gospels a 
substantial narrative, connecting us with the 
apostolic age. The great facts that compose the 

* John xxi. 24. 



1 1 6 BEGINNING LIFE. 

Supernatural Life of our Lord are there set 
forth veritably as they appeared to the churches 
of the first age — to the apostles who were His 
companions. There is no evidence whatever of 
a later growth of miracle — no indications that 
men like Ignatius, or Papias, or Justin Martyr 
believed in any respect a different story of the 
origin of these facts from what St Matthew, 
or St John, or St Paul believed. Jesus Christ 
was undoubtedly the same Divine Lord and 
Master to the one that He w^as to the other. 
Further, there is no presumption of imposture 
possible in either case. If ever men were 
honest in the world, the early preachers and 
founders of the Christian Church were. We 
have spoken specially of St John, for the 
sake of pointing our argument. But all that 
has been said of him is no less true of the 
others. 

Is it then possible that, although honest, they 
may have been mistaken ? May the facts, after 
all, not have been such as they describe ? But, 
to take again special cases for illustration, 
how could St Matthew and St John have 
had better opportunities of knowing the facts 
of which they speak ? They were both primary 
witnesses of the Supernatural Life of our Lord. 
They not merely tell us their own belief, or 
affirm that certain miraculous acts were done 
by Christ, but they recount at length how 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 117 

they and the other disciples were associated 
with Him in private and public for three 
years, how, along with many others, they 
were the witnesses of His great works. It is 
no mere assertion of preternatural gifts se- 
cretly exercised, it is no mere statement of 
wonder done in a corner; but it is the detailed 
picture of a Supernatural Activity, unresting in 
its benevolent and holy zeal, seeking no oppor- 
tunity of display, and yet shrinking from no 
occasion of danger. Jesus " went about all the 
cities and villages, teaching in their syna- 
gogues, and preaching the Gospel of the 
kingdom, and healing every sickness and every 
disease among the people.'' ^' Two blind men 
follow Him into a house, and at His word 
their eyes are opened. A dumb and pos- 
sessed man is brought to Him, and the evil 
spirit is cast out, and the dumb begins to 
speak. These are merely a few incidents 
selected from a cluster in one chapter of St. 
Matthew. t All is done in the light of day, 
not merely before the disciples, but before the 
multitude, who marvel greatly, saying, "It 
was never so seen in Israel.'' The same 
direct and personal evidence is constantly 
appealed to by St John. He himself beheld 
the glory of Jesus and the works which 
bore witness of Him. Along with the other 

* Matthew ix. 35. t lb. ix. 27-33. 



ii8 BEGINNING LIFE. 

disciples he saw the man who was born 
blind restored to sight, and many, he says, 
who knew the man from his youth were 
forced to acknowledge the fact ; * he was one 
of those who gathered up the fragments from 
the miraculous feast of the five thousand ; i 
he was with his Master at the grave of Laza- 
rus, and saw the dead man come forth, "bound 
hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face 
bound about with a napkin/' % *^ And many 
other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of 
His disciples/' § How then could they be 
deceived in all this ? What better evidence 
can there be of facts than that they were 
done in the light of day, before the men 
who report them, and whose veracity is unim- 
peachable ? 

And let it be remembered that in thus 
stating the case in connexion with two of 
the Evangelists alone, we are greatly under- 
stating it. The evidence of St Peter, as re- 
ported by St Mark, is in all substantial points 
identical. The evidence of St Luke, who says 
he had "perfect understanding of all things 
from the first,'' is to the same effect. The evi- 
dence of St Paul to the great miracle of the 
resurrection is as emphatic as that of any of 
the Evangelists. Even if the evidence of the 
Gospels failed us altogether, is it possible to 

* John ix. t lb. vi. % lb. xi. 44. § lb. xx. 30. 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 119 

doubt the statements of the great Apostle of 
the Gentiles, in the well-known fifteenth 
chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians ? 
The most audacious criticism has not ven- 
tured to impugn the genuineness of this Epis- 
tle. The blindest scepticism cannot doubt 
that it represents the true faith of St Paul, 
and that his faith was so far identical with 
that of St Matthew and St Peter and St 
John. There was plainly no other faith. It 
was not merely that one or two Evangelists 
believed in our Lord's miracles and resurrec- 
tion, but that all the apostles, and Paul and 
Barnabas, and the seventy disciples, no less 
believed in the same, and on the same grounds, 
because " the Life was manifested and they 
had seen it.'' From this faith and no other 
did the panic-stricken followers of Jesus 
gather fresh and sudden hope when their 
cause seemed utterly lost. In this faith and 
no other did they go forth into the world 
" teaching all nations," and planting the 
germs of a new order of righteousness and 
purity and charity w^herever they went. 

Is it possible to believe that in all this they 
were the victims of mere illusion ? They 
were men of very different character and 
susceptibilities. Is it likely that they should 
have been all equally the subjects of the same 
illusion ? Their personal relations were not 



I20 BEGINNING LIFE. 

free from difficulty. St Paul especially was 
distinguished in many respects from the 
others. He had not been subjected to the 
same personal influences ; his training was of 
a different kind. He was a preacher of the 
same truth, we may say, rather than an 
adherent of the same party. Even in the 
earliest times there were not merely distinctions 
but rivalries in the apostolic circle. Can we 
suppose that, notwithstanding these marked 
differences, all the men were equally domi- 
nated by the same illusion — that a movement 
so complex and yet so powerful, drawing 
within its circle such diverse and opposite 
natures, rested on nothing save a conjecture 
or a dream ? vSuch a supposition seems incon- 
sistent with faith in human testimony or the 
credibility of history. 

Imposture out of the question, there are 
only the alternatives of mere enthusiasm or a 
genuine supernatural impulse. Enthusiasm 
is, no doubt, a powerful factor in human 
history. It has initiated and carried forward 
many a great movement. But all enthusiasm 
must have some basis. It must have a living 
root in fact of some kind. The fact here was 
the overpowering assurance that the Lord was 
risen indeed. No one doubts this. Even the 
great head of the Tubingen school was wont 
to acknowledge that the assured fact of the 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 121 

resurrection of Christ in the consciousness 
of the apostles was the only explanation of 
Christianity. But what explanation of the 
subjective fact can there be but the objective 
reality? In other words, what could have 
produced the faith of the apostles but their 
living contact with the Supernatural Life 
in whose revived and continued presence 
they believed? What save such a contact 
with the Divine could have given energy and 
triumph to a movement which was otherwise 
the most hopeless that human being ever 
imagined or attempted ? Think of the fisher- 
men of Galilee, or even Saul of Tarsus, 
engaging in the conversion of the world 
on the strength of an illusion ! Whence could 
it have come ? How soon would it have spent 
itself? Unless there had been a Spiritual 
Power behind, and Divine Truth witnessing to 
itself in all the events of our Lord's life and 
death, the origin and the mission of Chris- 
tianity alike seem unintelligible. 

Look for a moment at the case which 
perhaps always most readily occurs in con- 
trast to the origin of Christianity — the case of 
Mohammed, and the rise of Mohammedanism. 
Mohammed, no doubt, succeeded in inspiring 
his friends with a belief in his Divine Mission. 
He professed to have special communication 



122 BEGINNING LIFE. 

with God, and his followers credited his 
profession. But who were his followers in 
the first instance ? His wife, his nephew, his 
freedman, and then his kinsmen or con- 
nexions in various degrees. The devotion of 
these disciples, indeed, is one of the most 
marvellous facts of history. But it did not 
claim to rest on any personal cognisance of 
the Divine communication which Mohammed 
was supposed to have received. Neither 
Kadijah, nor Ali, nor Zeid, nor Abu Beker 
professed to be witnesses of the alleged visits 
of the angel Gabriel to the prophet. Nay, 
these visits v/ere always made in circum- 
stances of solitude, which excluded the pos- 
sibility of any other evidence save that of 
Mohammed himself. The belief which he 
inspired was entirely personal. He made no 
appeal to miracles. • He could never have 
said, *^If ye believe not me, believe my works. 
The works that I do bear witness of me." 
There is an entire absence of reliance on the 
testimony of others to his prophetic character 
and pretensions. All of Divine that he arro- 
gates is wrapped up in his own assertion, 
and his wonderful confidence in his own 
powers. 

It is scarcely possible to conceive any 
greater contrast to the evidence on which the 
Divine origin of Christianity exists. The 



THE DIRECT WITNESS. 123 

appeal of Christ is grounded, not on secret 
communications with God, but on works 
openly wrought in the face of 'men. The 
witnesses of these works, St Matthew and St 
John, and the companions of those who were 
witnesses, St Mark and St Luke, are the men 
who record them, or to whom at least the 
substance of the existing narratives are to be 
primarily traced. They are witnesses not 
merely for themselves, but for the churches 
they represent. The Gospels, all the more 
from the fact that they may be of composite 
rather than of simple authorship, are repre- 
sentative of a wide^ circle of testimony. St 
Paul stands by himself as a witness for 
the resurrection. It is possible to conceive 
that one or other may have been mistaken ; 
but that they should have been all together 
mistaken, and in the same manner, baffles 
conception. Supposing the men to have been 
thoroughly honest — w^hich is beyond question 
— supposing, further, that we have in the Gos- 
pels, as we have argued, the substantial story 
which they told, the conclusion seems inevit- 
able, upon all the grounds which determine 
the validity of historical testimony, that the 
Christ was the Supernatural Being that He is 
represented, and that His Divine mission was 
a fact. The appeal of St Peter on the day ol 
Pentecost is still an appeal cogent for us 



124 BEGINNING LIFE. 

across the lapse of eighteen centuries — " Ye 
men of Israel^ hear these words : Jesus of 
Nazareth^ a man approved of God among you by 
miracles and wonders and signsy which God did 
by htm" 




VIII. 

t 

THE INTERNAL WITNESS. 




jUT Christianity is not merely an his- 
toric fact. It is also a spiritual truth. 
While appealing, therefore, to our 
^^^^ rational assent, it must also and 
eminently appeal to our moral assent — our " con- 
science in the sight of God.'* This internal wit- 
ness of Christianity is " evidence " of its Divine 
origin, and was felt to be so by the apostle Paul. 
It was a sure strength to him in making known 
the revelation of God in Christ. It made him 
address with equal confidence the moralists of 
Athens and the devout men of the synagogue 
everywhere. The gospel which he preached he 
felt to be " the manifestation of the truth." 



126 BEGINNING LIFE. 

There is in man, as his history everywhere 
shews, divine aspirations which give him no rest 
till they become fixed on objects fitted to satisfy 
them. It is the profession of Christianity that 
it meets these aspirations more thoroughly than 
any other religion. It is its peculiar boast, that 
it alone is adequate to meet the wants of the 
awakened and inquiring soul. It is obvious~that 
the question comes to this. The mere satisfaction 
that a religion gives to its votaries could never 
be held as an evidence of its divinity. There 
can be no question of evidence where there is 
no inquiry. And every one knows that the 
very absence of the spirit which prompts inquiry 
betokens the most perfect satisfaction. There 
are none so satisfied with their religion — be it 
Romanism or Protestantism — be it Islamism, or 
Brahminism, or Buddhism — as those who hav^ 
never once seriously inquired what its origin 
was, or what constitute its evidences, or even its 
meaning. They are what they are from the 
uncontrollable influences of training and habit, 
which have left them without any independent 
will or capacity of reflective discernment. And 
how large a proportion of the human race are 
in this condition it is needless to say. There 
can be no question as to true or false, so far as 
their mere experience of religion goes. They 
are satisfied, not because they have proved 
and found the truth, but because the ques- 



THE INTERNAL WITNESS, 127 

tion, What is truth ? has never occurred to 
them. They have never reached the stage of 
reflection. 

When it is said, therefore, that Christianity ap- 
proves itself to the conscience, it is of course 
meant that 'it does so to the educated and in- 
quiring conscience. As a subject of reflection, 
it stands where other systems fall. It is the only 
divine philosophy. In Jesus Christ, and in Him 
alone, as one has said, " all contradictions are 
reconciled.'' The hints of truth which shine out 
in other religions, darkening often rather than 
illuminating by their cross-lights, are in Him 
blended and harmonised. " He is the true Light, 
which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world." 

This is plainly a question to be settled by a 
fair appeal to the facts of man's moral being. 
Do these inner facts witness to the revealed facts 
of the gospel t Is there a true correspondence 
between them of subject and object, of want 
and supply, of necessity and remedy.? There isy 
many of the most profound moral thinkers that 
the world has known have answered. They have 
examined human nature, and laid bare its moral 
characteristics, and here, in Christianity, they 
have said, is its only satisfaction — its only true 
wisdom and strength. This was the great idea 
on which Pascal designed his work on behalf of 



128 BEGINNING LIFE, 

Christianity, the fragments of which are all that 
s^urvive in his well-known * Pens6es.' No one can 
say, certainly, that Pascal shrinks from a full 
inquiry, or that he was insensible to the varied 
and complex aspects of human nature. It is his 
very comprehension of these aspects, and the 
manner in which he feels himself tossed from the 
one to the other, unable to rest in any, seeing 
the weak point in all, that drives him on to the 
recognition of the divine truth of Christianity, as 
alone meeting them and blending them into har- 
mony. Man, he argues, is fallen and yet great 
He is miserable, and yet he cherishes the in- 
stincts of divine happiness. " His very miseries 
prove his greatness. They are the miseries of a 
lord — of a dethroned sovereign." Mere human 
religions or philosophies have failed, or proved 
their incapacity, in the manner in which they 
have recognised the one without the other of 
these moral features of humanity. Some have 
appealed to man's sense of weakness, others to 
his sense of greatness. The one has degraded 
him unduly, the other has exalted him unduly. 
With the one he has been little more than ani- 
mal, with the other he has been as a God. " If, 
on the one hand," he says, " they have recog- 
nised the dignity of man, they have ignored his 
corruption, and avoiding sloth, they have plunged 
into pride. If, on the other hand, they have re- 
cognised the weakness of his nature, they have 



THE INTERNAL WITNESS, 129 

ignored its dignity, and avoiding vanity, they 
have plunged into despair.'* 

The diverse sects of philosophers — Stoics and 
Epicureans, Platonists and Pyrrhonists — appear 
to have ^rung from one or other of these half- 
representations of humanity. Christianity alone 
unites both halves. It alone answers to the es- 
sential doubleness of man's nature ; and by its 
living hold of both ideas of dignity and corrup- 
tion, of excellence and sin, shews itself to be a 
divine power of moral education for the race. 

*' Christianity can alone cure at once pride and 
despair; not by expelling the one by the other, 
according to the wisdom of the world, but by 
expelling both the one and the other by the 
simplicity of the gospel. For it teaches the 
good, that while it elevates them to be partakers 
of the Divine nature, they yet carry with them, 
in their elevation, the sense of that corruption 
which renders them in life the victims of error, 
misery, sin, and death ; while, at the same time, 
it proclaims to the worst that they are capable 
of the grace of redemption. Thus touching with 
humility those whom it justifies, and with conso- 
lation those whom it condemns, it tempers with 
due measure fear and hope, through the two- 
fold capacity in all of. grace and sin. It abases 
infinitely more than reason, yet without pro- 
ducing despair ; it elevates more than mere natu- 
ral pride, yet without producing inflat'on. Alone 

I 



I30 BEGINNING LIFE, 

free from error, to it alone belongs the task of 
instructing and disciplining men. Who then can 
refuse to believe and adore its heavenly light ?" 
Such is the singular adaptation of Christianity 
to our moral necessities, as it appeared to a great 
thinker, a man of keen and noble intellect as 
well as deep and true affection. The thought 
of such a man is not necessarily convincing to 
others, but it claims our regard more than most 
thoughts. When a man of profound reflective 
capacity, and varied moral experience, in whom 
the qualities of reason, imagination, and feeling 
reach well-nigh the highest range of which they 
are capable, tells us that he has found in Chris- 
tianity what he has found nowhere else, what 
all other systems only partially comprehend and 
express, surely this is in some degree evidence 
of the truth of Christianity. Such a man was 
Pascal. His mind was of a rarely inquisitive 
and even sceptical turn. He had studfed Des- 
cartes, and he had studied Montaigne. He had 
tried Dogmatism and Pyrrhonism, as he styled 
the systems of each respectively. He could find 
rest in neither. " Nature confounds the Pyr- 
rhonist,*' he said, " and reason the Dogmatist." 
There is a truth both for the reason and faith, 
but it lies not in demonstration. It is within us, 
yet above us — the revelation of the Divine to 
the human soul. This truth is found in Christi- 
anity, and in it alone. 



THE INTERNAL WITNESS. 131 

The same wonderful skill of Christianity to 
meet all the deeper needs of human nature 
has been often proved. There have been few 
greater spiritual intellects than Augustine ; 
few more honest or more capable in their 
search after Divine truth, with a larger 
acquaintance with other systems of thought, 
or a deeper knowledge of all sides of human 
experience. Blessed with a pious and de- 
voted mother, who early instructed him in 
the faith and love of Jesus Christ, he yet long 
resisted the solicitation of all her prayers and 
example, and gave himself to the investigation 
of the claims of the conflicting philosophies of 
his day. He studied diligently in the schools 
of rhetoric, and passed rapidly from one 
phase of thought to another. For some time 
Manicheism enthralled him. Its doctrine of 
two principles, one of good and one of evil, 
seemed to answer to the wild confusion of his 
own heart, and the contact of higher and 
lower impulses which raged within him. It 
seemed to solve the mysteries which per- 
plexed him in his own life and in the world. 
But so soon as he began to test it, and came 
in contact with its highest teachers, he found 
its insufficiency. The study of Plato then 
attracted him by its noble lessons, but still a 
void remained in his heart. The mental rest 
after which he sought did not come. "To- 



132 BEGINNING LIFE. 

morrow/' he said to himself, '^ I shall find it ; 
it will appear manifestly, and I shall grasp it." 
Happily Plato led him onwards to St Paul, 
and Ambrose the bishop and great f)reacher 
of Milan awoke by his powerful sermons the 
deeper chords of his spiritual nature. Gra- 
dually, as he studied the Pauline Epistles, the 
unrest of his mind revealed its true character. 
The thought of Divine purity struggled in 
him with the love of the world, and the flesh, 
and the glory of mere intellectual ambition, 
till one day he sought refuge in prayer, and 
with strong emotion and tears poured out his 
heart before God. A voice was heard amidst 
his emxOtion bidding him to read on, and as 
he read the whole truth and reality of the 
Divine life was flashed upon him in the words, 
" Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make 
not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts 
thereof.'' He says, '^ I had neither desire 
nor need to read further. As I finished the 
sentence, as though the light of peace had 
been poured into my heart, all the shadows of 
doubt dispersed." . . He shut the volume, and 
carried the joyful tidings to his mother, who 
rejoiced in her turn. She had received more 
than an answer to all her prayers. '*'For 
Thou hadst converted me unto Thyself," he 
adds, ^' so as no longer to seek for other hope 
in the world." * 

♦ Confess B. viii. 29, 30. 



THE INTERNAL WITNESS. 133 

Such a man, also, was Justin, in the second 
century. He had gone abroad in search of 
wisdom ; he had travelled to Egypt, and Greece, 
and Rome ; he had sought instruction in every 
philosophical school ; he had tried Stoics, and 
Pythagoreans, and Platonists ; he had discussed 
with Jews at Ephesus, and gazed with amaze- 
ment on the seat of the oracular Sibyl at Cumse. 
And as the result of all his wanderings and 
experiences, he tells us that he found in Chris- 
tianity " the only sound and useful philosophy." 
What other systems professed to give, he alone 
found realised in the gospel. Such have been 
many men in every age, who have wandered 
forth in search of the truth — earnest and pa- 
tient seekers — and at length only found it at 
the foot of the cross. 

Is there any other religion that can boast of 
such triumphs as Christianity.'^ Is there any 
other at whose altar have been laid so many 
offerings, not merely of enthusiasm and of 
simple faith, but of exercised thoughtfulness and 
of earnest reason } Is there any one has ever 
entered, as it has done, into all the depths of 
the soul } Is there any other religion whatever 
can claim man as the child of reaso7i ; and just 
because he has reason, call upon him in the light 
of day to examine and prove that it offers him 
all he needs? This is its peculiar distinction. 



134 BEGINNING LIFE. 

" The gospel," says one,* who had learned much 
from Pascal, " unites itself intimately with all 
that is most profound and ineradicable in our 
nature. It fills in it a void — it clears from it 
darkness — it binds into harmony the broken ele- 
ments, and creates unity. It m.akes itself not 
only to be believed, but felt ; and when the soul 
has thoroughly appropriated it, it blends indis- 
tinguishably with all the primitive beliefs, and 
the natural light (or reason) which every man 
brings into the world." 

i^.gain, the same author urges the correspond- 
ence between the soul and the gospel in a 
beautiful passage : — " You remember the custom 
of ancient hospitality : before parting with a 
stranger, the father of the family, breaking a 
piece of clay on which certain characters were 
impressed, gave one half to the stranger, and 
kept the other himself Years after, these two 
fragments brought together and rejoined, ac- 
knowledged each other — so to speak, — formed a 
bond of recognition between those presenting 
them ; and in attesting old relations, became 
at the same time the basis of new. So in the 
book of our soul does the Divine revelation unite 
itself to the old traces there. The soul does not 
discover, but recognises the truth. It infers 
that a reunion {rencontre) — impossible to chance, 
impossible to calculation — can only be the work 
*Vinet 



THE INTERNAL WITNESS. 135 

and secret of God ; and it is then really that we 
believe, when the gospel has for us passed from 
the rank of an external to the rank of an /;?- 
te7'nal truth, and, if I might say so, of an instinct 
— when, in short, it has become part and parcel 
of our consciousness." 

This internal evidence, of course, is in its 
very nature dependent upon an honest, docile, 
and (if we may say so without incurring the 
charge of arguing in a circle) believing spirit. 
A man who has lost the capacity of faith 
through self-will, or pride of intellect, or any 
other cause — of course there can be no such 
v/itness of the Spirit to him. He has eyes, but 
he sees not, and ears, but he hears not. If a 
man is not in search of truth, he cannot find it 
"There is light enough for those who are will- 
ing, but darkness enough for those who are of 
an opposite disposition," says Pascal. It is no 
answer, therefore, to our argument to say that 
there are many who have no such experience of 
Christianity. It may be so ; but have such any 
spiritual experience t Have they had their 
hearts stirred in them to know good and evil ? 
Have they longed after God, and sought to 
know Him, and to find their happiness in know- 
ing Him ? If they have not — then they are out 
of court in the present case. A spiritual faith 
can only be known to those whose spiritual 



136 



BEGINNING LIFE, 



susceptibilities are awake and in quest of the 
truth. If they have — then so far their case must 
stand in bar of our conclusion. We would not 
say that there are not such cases. We would 
not say that there may not be men of deep 
sincerity, and even of spiritual earnestness, who 
cannot find rest in Christianity in such a time 
as ours. We have no .right to say such a thing. 
But we have right to say that such cases are 
rare, and are at the best of partial importance. 
They must be taken into account in forming 
our judgment ; but they are not entitled to set 
aside the positive evidence with which they 
seem to conflict. It must be always difficult to 
estimate such cases, and understand their true 
importance. 

The conclusion remains, that the awakened 
spiritual intelligence of man, in its highest 
and most developed forms, continues to find, 
as it has found in past ages, its truest satis- 
faction in the gospel. It finds here a revelation 
of God, and a revelation of itself such as it finds 
nowhere else — a witness of Perfection above 
coming down to meet imperfection on earth, 
and to raise it to its own blessed union and 
strength. It finds here a power to quicken and 
enlighten, to regenerate and sanctify — a power 
which brings the alienated soul back to God, 
and heals its anxieties, and kindles its torpor, 
and, from the darkness of sin, raises it to the 



THE INTERNAL WITNESS. 137 

light of heaven. It is impossible that a religion 
which thus leads to God should not come from 
Him — that our spiritual being should be quick- 
ened into life and righteousness by a falsehood. 
" Suppose, after all, that you are told that this 
religion is false ; but meanwhile it has restored 
in you the image of God, re-established your 
original connexion with that great Being, and 
put you in a condition to enjoy the bliss ol 
heaven ; by means of it you have become such 
that it is impossible God should not recognise 
you as His child, and own you at the last, and 
make you partaker of His glory. You are 
made fit for paradise, nay, paradise has begun in 
you here — for you live. This religion has done 
for you what all religions propose, but what no 
other has realised. Nevertheless, by this sup- 
position, it is false — what more could it do if it 
were true 1 Nay, do you not rather see that 
this is a splendid 'proof of its truth t Do you 
not see that a religion which thus leads to God 
mast come from God.'^" It has the witness in 
itself — " the Spirit of truth which proceedeth 
from the Father, and which testifieth of the 
Son. ' 




IX. 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 




T is necessary not only to be able 
to render a reason for the faith that 
is in us, but, moreover, clearly to 
understand the objects presented 
to our faith in Christianity. The two states 
of mind are intimately connected. No one is 
in a position to appreciate the " evidences " 
of Christianity who does not understand what 
Christianity clearly is, (and there are some 
who argue on the subject in our day do not 
really understand this ;) and no one can be 
said to understand Christianity as a subject of 
thought, who does not know something of its 
evidences 



WHA T TO BELIE VE. 139 

The very extent to which Christianity has 
been raade a subject of thought and argument 
has a tendency to obscure its meaning to the 
young inquirer. It has been so elaborately 
systematised, and its various articles so minutely 
controverted, that it is difficult, amid the mass 
of speculation and discussion with which it has 
been invested, to discern its simple meaning. 
And yet, undoubtedly, its true meaning is very 
simple, and capable of being apprehended, quite 
irrespective of the controversies which have tra- 
versed and complicated it. We have only to 
transport ourselves in imagination to the apos- 
tolic age, before any of these controversies had 
arisen — before the ages of dogma had yet come — 
in order to feel how possible it must be to under- 
stand Christianity fully, without plunging into 
the perilous war of words that has long raged 
around it. Do not all feel who have most studied 
it, that this is especially what they have to do 
— to read its simple meaning in the crossed 
page of its history — to rise above its watchwords, 
as they reach us across the ages, bearing many 
confusing sounds, to the living heart of the 
cause which they symbolised and were meant 
to defend — instead of losing the reality in the 
words, and becoming enslaved to names which 
may have long lost their original strength anc. 
truthfulness.'^ 

Beyond all question the objects presented to 



140 BEGINNING LIFE. 

our faith in the gospel — what we are to believe 
— are not primarily any set of propositions or 
number of articles. Such propositions or articles 
may be of the highest utility ; they may serve 
admirably to express, in an expository form or 
outline, our faith ; but, primarily, they are not 
matters of faith. The primary object of Chris- 
tian faith, as of all faith, is a Person. Trust in 
me can only be created by character or claims 
in another. I may assent to a proposition, but 
I do not properly believe it till the element of 
personality with which it is connected, or which 
it represents, comes into play. Faith, like love, 
is the appropriate exchange of one soul and 
spirit with another, or with Him who is the 
Father of spirits, in whose hand is the souL of 
every living thing ; and the word is emptied of 
its best meaning when (especially in religion) it 
is used in any lower sense. 

The great and comprehending object of Chris- 
tian faith is Christ. As St Paul said to the 
Philippian jailer, when, pressed with his sudden 
burden of offence and danger, he cried out, 
" What must I do to be saved } " *' Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." In 
Jesus Christ is summed up all that we have to 
believe — the revelation of the Father — the re- 
deeming sacrifice of the Son — the sanctifying of 
the Spirit, which proceedeth from the Father, 
and testifieth of the Son. In Him, and in Him 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 141 

alone, we truly see our sin and misery — our 
help and salvation — our death and our life — our 
selfish unrighteousness, and the *' righteousness 
which is of God by faith of Him." 

I. — The Revelation of the Father. 

In believing in Jesus Christ we believe' on 
the Father, revealed in and by Him. He came 
^' to bear witness of the Father," to reveal the 
eternal government of the universe in a holy 
and loving Will — *' who made the world and all 
things therein " — who is " God over all, blessed 
for ever." This was what men had failed to find 
out in all their religious searches, in all their 
philosophic inquiries. The Supreme was con- 
ceived of as a great power of fate, or as an arbi- 
trary and capricious personality, or series of per- 
sonalities. Men had generalised the aspects of 
nature, and beheld Deity now in the soft sun- 
shine and gentle spring-time, and now in the de- 
vastating forms of heat and cold, of thunder and 
storm. A creative, formative principle seemed 
everywhere striving with a destructive principle 
--a power of light with a power of darkness — 
a Baal-Adonis with a Baal-Moloch — an Osiris 
with a Typhon — an Ormuzd with an Ahriman 
— Olympus with Hades. This dualism appears 
in all nature - religions ; the reflection of the 
brightness and gloom of nature — the joy and 



142 BEGINNING LIFE. 

sorrow of life. It crops out alike in the torpid 
Pantheism of the East, and in the active and 
changing Polytheism of the West. Philosophy, 
even when it seemed to penetrate to a unity of 
substance and being beneath the multiplicity 
of form and phenomena — as in Platonism — was 
never entirely liberated from the same bond of 
dualism. As Destiny was the dark background 
of all the joyous activity of Olympus, so Ne- 
cessity was the encompassing barrier of even 
the Platonic Deity. Creation, in a free Theistic 
sense, was unknown. It was " God persuading 
Necessity to become stable, harmonious, and 
fashioned according to beauty," which was the 
highest conception of Greek thought in this 
direction. 

If there were no other proof of our Lord's 
divine mission, this, we think, were one — that 
the son of a Galilean carpenter taught a higher 
doctrine of God than all previous religion and 
philosophy had done ; that He unveiled the 
Supreme as an unconditionally free, and loving, 
and holy Intelligence ; as a Being infinitely 
exalted, and apart from all evil — " higher than 
the very heavens " — '' dwelling in the light which 
no man can approach unto ; whom no man hath 
seen nor can see '' — and yet a Being '' not far 
from any one of us," '' who numbereth the very 
hairs of our head," and " suffereth not a sparrow 
to fall to the ground without His permission/' 



IVHAT TO BELIEVE. 1^3 

If any one doubts what an advance this was on 
all previous teaching, he has only to study the 
Gnostic systems of the first Christian ages, and 
see what difficulty the thought of the time had 
in seizing the Christian idea of God even after it 
was promulgated. These systems, one and all 
of them, are nothing else than attempts of spe- 
culation to reduce the Theistic idea to the old 
dualistic bonds. A God infinitely above man — 
absolute in power, goodness, and truth, and yet 
near to man — in Christ " very man " — supreme, 
and yet "our Father'' — light, and yet love — ■ 
governing the world with personal solicitude for 
His creatures, yet unmoved by their passions, 
untouched by the darkness in their hearts ; — this 
was beyond the speculative intellect then, as it 
has been beyond the same intellect always when 
divorced from spiritual insight and the light of 
faith, which can alone pierce the darkness of 
time. 

This revelation of God as the absolute One 
and yet a living Personality near to all, was only 
fully made known in Christ. It appears, indeed, 
in the Old-Testament writings ; the very lan- 
guage we have used in characterising it shews 
this; yet it was only in Christ it became clear 
and perfect. The Jewish mind clung, according 
to its narrow instincts, with a peculiar tenacity 
to the narrower characteristics of the Divine char- 
acter revealed to it, the tutelary attributes by 



144 BEGINNING LIFE. 

which He was signalised as the God of the Jews* 
— their national Deity— ^rather than the broader 
attributes which revealed Him as the God of 
humanity, the " Father pf the Spirits of all flesh.'* 
The higher prophetic minds among the Hebrews 
saw onward to the full radiance of this revela- 
tion, and ^*were glad;" but it never became a 
living faith to the common Jewish mind. It 
never planted itself as a living faith in man till 
it was seen incarnated in Christ ; and we beheld 
" His glory, as the glory of the only-begotten of 
the Father, full of grace and truth." 

This revelation of the Father is a primary 
obj ect of Christian faith. Or rather, according to 
what we have said, the Father revealed in Christ 
is such an object. To believe in God as abso- 
lutely true and good, as holy and loving, as ** of 
purer eyes than to behold iniquity," and yet — 
should we not rather say, and therefore — of in- 
finite compassion towards the sinner, — this is 
the spring of all genuine religion, as the want of 
faith in God is the spring of all false religion. 
It is wonderful how many miss this spring, 
*' this living fountain, and hew out unto them- 
selves broken cisterns, that can hold no water." 
It would seem the hardest thing of all for many 
to trust in God — to realise for themselves that. 
God loves them, and seeks their good ; that for 
this end Christ came into the world to shew tlie 



WBA T TO BELIE VE. 145 

love and the holiness of the Father ; not as two 
things in conflict, but as one blessed Will that 
would save us from our sins. As St John has 
taught in that marvellous text, the meaning of 
which we can never exhaust—'* God so loved 
the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life." 

II. — The Redeeming Sacrifice of the Son. 

This was the redeeming sacrifice of the Son, 
that the Father gave* Him for us. " In this was 
manifested the love of God toward us, because 
that God sent his only-begotten Son into the 
world, that we might live through him. Herein 
is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved 
us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for 
our sins." Such is the simple teaching of Scrip- 
ture, in which we may find strength and peace, 
although we are no theologians, and may be 
unable to theorise regarding the means and 
the extent of the atonement. 

The great facts brought before us in such 
statements, and many others, of Scripture, are 
the loving will of the Father, and the voluntary 
sacrifice of the Son in our behalf ; the latter as 
the free outgoing or expression of the former. 
Every mode of thought or manner of speech 
which tends to dissever these two facts, and 

K 



146 BEGINNING LIFE. 

to introduce any element of conflict into the 
Divine mind regarding human redemption, is 
carefully to be guarded against. It is perfectly 
true, no doubt, and very important truth, that 
the holiness and justice of God must hate and 
repel our sins. God is revealed as a Sovereign 
and Lawgiver, as well as a Father ; and the 
sinner as transgressor of Divine law, must lie 
under its penalty. Those who push out of sight 
the elements of law and justice, and leave only 
those of love and pity, detract from the full 
revelation of the character of God, as they wil- 
fully ignore many facts of life. Everywhere 
around us and in us there are traces of retri- 
butive operation — of laws violated, and punish- 
ment swiftly following the violation. There are 
instincts of genuine alarm and danger in us, 
which tremble before the Divine righteousness. 
In one sense, therefore, it is right to say that the 
justice of God claims our punishment, while the 
love of God claims our salvation ; but these two 
outgoings of the Divine will towards us are only 
apparently, and not really in conflict. They do 
not mean diff"erent things ; they mean the very 
same thing. The Divine justice claims the pun- 
ishment of our sins to the end that we may be 
saved from them ; the Divine love claims our 
salvation for no other end. Salvation is always 
and everywhere, in its true meanmg resctce 
from sin. The Lord gave Himself for us that 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 147 

He " might redeem us from all our iniquities, and 
purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous 
of good works/* 

The redeeming sacrifice of Christ, therefore, 
is at once the expression of the Father's love, 
and an oblation to satisfy Divine justice. It 
is both, for the very same reason that Christ 
was the manifestation of the Father upon earth, 
to do the Father's will. " Lo, I come ; in the 
volume of the book it is written of me, I delight 
to do thy will, O my God," is the memorial ex- 
pression of the atonement. The will of the 
Father in Christ was love to the sinner, and at 
the same time hatred of the sinner's sin, or holi- 
ness. The realisation of the Divine love in the 
holy hfe, healing miracles, and bitter death of 
Christ, was also the satisfaction of the Divine holi- 
ness — the magnifying of the law, and making it 
honourable. The very doing of the Father's loving 
will was the propitiation of His offended justice. 
He looked on Christ, and saw in Him the perfect 
accomplishment of His thought towards man. 
The voice from heaven was heard to say, " This 
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'* 

This sacrifice of Christ in His. life and in His 
death is the great object of Christian faith. '' He 
gave himself for us — the Just for the unjust — that 
He might bring us unto God." Look clearly 
and practically at this thought, and see if you 
do^ not realise its meaning as living and true for 



t48 BEGINNING LIFE. 

you. Do you not feel that there is something 
in you that answers to it ? — nay, that there is 
something in you that demands it ? If your 
spiritual life has been awakened, and you have 
come to own yourself a creature of God, do you 
not feel, at the same time, how difficult it is for 
you to live near to God and to do His will ? 
Do you not feel that His will to you must be a 
will of condemnation and of punishment, if you 
are to stand before Him and court His judg- 
ment on yourself? The deepest spiritual natures 
that the world has ever known have felt this — 
St Paul, Augustine, Luther, Pascal. They all 
felt that they had no hope in themselves b'^- 
fore God. *' Their own heart condemned them.'* 
'' O wretched man that I am ! " exclaimxcd St 
Paul ; *' who shall deliver me from the body of 
this death.?" "Oh, my sins, my sins!" cried 
Luther. " It is in vain that I promise to God. 
Sin is always too strong for me." 

Is this or is it not a real moral experience 1 
one under which every soul, really quickened to 
life — really aroused to earnest spiritual thought- 
fulness — passes } It is surely a cruel, as well as 
a useless mockery, to pass by such experiences, 
and give them no response, while yet they cry 
from every full heart, to which the sense of 
God has come in power and awe. Are they to 
be thought only strange voices crying in the 
wilderness, while the progress of religious truth 



WHAT TO BELIEVE, 149 

sweeps past them ? No. These siispiria de pre^ 
fimdis are the most genuine utterances of reH- 
gious truth. They are the Hving voice of God in 
the soul, and no mere cry of exaggerated despair. 
And if this be so, then — if it be a true feehng 
in us that we cannot in ourselves stand before 
God, that we cannot in ourselves render Him 
obedience — who shall say that our rest in Christ, 
and our hope in Him, contradict any instincts 
of our spirit } Is it not Help we need — some 
one to unveil to us the face of God, and bring 
Him near to us, and us to Him } Is not media- 
tion the necessary correlate of alienation } If 
the sinner cannot reach God — if his sins hold 
him back — is it not some one to open up the 
way to him, " new and living," and to bear his 
sins, that he wants ? This question of mediation 
and its necessity, is one which it is in vain for 
any mere esoteric and refining theology to hope 
to settle, by round assertions as to mediation 
being in contradiction to our moral instincts. 
Where is the evidence of this } " Our moral in- 
stincts," we presume, are the higher instincts of 
our common humanity, which connect us with 
duty and with God. They cannot be the refine- 
ments of a few philosophic natures, who have 
gradually pared down their spiritual conscious- 
ness, till it has lost all its rougher vitality. The 
common heart seems nowhere to find any con- 
tradiction in the idea of mediation. It is above 



150 BEGINNING LIFE. 

all the religious idea to which it everywhere 
clings. If there be one thing more than another 
for which the soul cries in its moments of reli- 
gious distress and moral temptation, it is help — 
help not in ourselves, but in another **able to 
save even to the uttermost." It is only when 
this higher power is owned by us, lifting us out 
of our sins, that we really rise above them, and 
feel that their bondage falls away from us, and 
that not merely the will, but the capacity to do 
good is present with us. 

It is true that this idea of mediation, so dear 
to the human heart, is extremely liable to cor- 
ruption. There is a constant tendency in popular 
religion, so to speak, to secularise it — to degrade 
it from the sphere of the Divine to the sphere 
of the human, and even of the material. Man 
feels so deeply the need of help, that he is apt 
to cling to any object to which -his religious 
affections may point when these are greatly 
agitated. The elaborate mediatory system of 
the Roman Catholic Church has its origin in 
this deep-seated tendency, and, no less indeed, 
some forms of Protestant faith. Whatever dis- 
severs, even in thought, Christ from God, and 
leaves the mind to rest on the sacrifice of Christ, 
as anything apart from the will of God, and a 
power moving it from without, rather than its 
own expression and power of love for our goody is 
so far of the very same character as the grosser 
Roman Catholic error that .Protestantism rejects. 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 151 

Nothing must be allowed to hide the heart im- 
mediately from God himself. It is God that 
saves us in Christ, and not Christ that saves us 
out of God. The Mediator whom the religious 
instinct demands, and whom Christianity reveals, 
is — Emmanuel, God with us. There is nothing 
can come near to us with any right effect as a 
thought of help in our hours of need save God 
himself — God in Christ revealed in the gospel, 
as loving us, and seeking our good. We have 
only to preserve clearly the unity of the will of 
God and of Christ in redemption, the fact that 
Christ IS God " manifest in the flesh," in order 
to rid the idea of mediation of all possible con- 
flict wath our spiritual consciousness, on the one 
hand, and of all materialising corruption, on the 
other hand. Everything that tends to disturb 
our clear perception of this unity — everything , 
that breaks down the full idea of the Incarna- 
tion, and suggests the thought of any extraneous 
power coming between us and God — serves at 
once to degrade and contradict our highest sense 
of religion. The soul can only find rest in God ; 
it can only be really helped .by Him. It has 
been so helped. God has revealed Himself in 
Christ as our Saviour. This is the great truth 
of the Gospel, and, more than anything else, the 
great truth which man ever needs. 

Fix your hearts on this truth — that God is 
your Saviour. It needs no special theological 



152 BEGINNING LIFE, 

knowledge to comprehend it ; and it remains 
substantially unaffected by many perplexities 
df dogmatic discussion. You need salvation. If 
you are honest and earnest, you will feel that 
there is a reality of evil in your lives from which 
you need to be delivered, and a reality of good 
in your imagination to which you cannot attain. 
God sent His Son into the world not merely to 
shew you by contrast the hatefulness of this evil 
and the beauty of this good. This indeed would 
have been but a small matter — to quicken and 
educate our moral sense, while we were left with 
an unrelieved sense of guilt and a weakened and 
perverted will : not so ; — but God sent His Son 
into the world to take away our sins. The bur- 
den of moral offence which our conscience owns 
He took upon Himself — He was "bruised for 
our iniquity." He so made Himself one with us 
in every feeling of humanity, as to realise what 
our sins were, and to atone for them before the 
Father; and having "thus made peace!' and not 
merely announced truth. He is able to save all 
that come unto Him. The conscience finds peace 
in the assurance of atonement ; the will finds 
strength in the knowledge of a living Help. In 
Him and through Him we are brought near to 
God in a full assurance of faith that God loves 
us, notwithstanding the offence of all our sins, 
and has reconciled us unto Himself by His cross. 
In Him we have redemption, even the forgive- 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 153 

ness of our sins, according to the riches of His 
grace. And nothing short of this — nothing short 
of a new relation — of a true reconciHation esta- 
blished between God and the sinner — seems to 
give a firm foundation to the religious life, and a 
genuine and growing vigour to it. 

" Will any faith that is short of this faith,'' 
asks one who has written thoughtfully of this 
and other kindred Christian topics,* " satisfy the 
deepest needs and cravings of your souls } You 
may struggle against it with your understand- 
ing, though I think very needlessly; for it seems 
to me to approve itself to the reason and the 
conscience quite as much as to demand accept- 
ance of our faith ; but you will crave it with 
your inmost spirit. There are times when per- 
haps nothing short of this will save you from a 
hopeless despair. Let me imagine, for example, 
one who, with many capacities for a nobler and 
purer life, and many calls thereunto, has yet suf- 
fered himself to be entangled in youthful lusts — 
has stained himself with these ; and then, after a 
while, awakens, or rather is awakened by the 
good Spirit of God, to ask himself. What have 
I done } How fares it with him at the retrospect 
then, when he, not wholly laid waste in spirit, is 
made to possess (O fearful possession !) the sins 
of his youth } Like a stricken deer, though none 
but himself may be conscious of his wound, he 
* Dean Trench. 



154 BEGINNING LIFE, 

wanders away from his fellows ; or if with them, 
he is alorie among them ; for he is brooding still 
and ever on the awful mystery of evil which he 
now too surely knows. And now, too, all purity, 
the fearful innocence of children, the holy love 
of sister and of mother, and the love which he 
had once dreamed of as better even than these, 
with all that is supremely fair in nature or in 
art, comes to him with a shock of pain, is fraught 
with an infinite sadness ; for it wakens up in 
him, by contrast, a livelier sense of what he is, 
and what, as it seems, he must for ever be ; it 
reminds him of a paradise for ever lost, the angel 
of God's anger guarding with a fiery sword its 
entrance against him. He tries by a thousand 
devices to still, or at least to deaden the undying 
pain of his spirit. What is this word sin that it 
should torment him so .^ He will tear away the 
conscience of it, this poisonous shirt of Nessus 
eating into his soul, which in a heedless moment 
he has put on. But no ; he can tear away his 
own flesh, but he cannot tear away that. Go 
where he may, he still carries with him the barbed 
shaft which has pierced him — kceret lateri letalis 
arimdo. The arrow which drinks up his spirit, 
there* is no sovereign dittany which will cause it 
to drop from his side — none, that is, which grows 
on earth ; but there is which grows in heaven, 
and in the Church of Christ, the heavenly en- 
closure there. And you, too, .may find your 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 155 

peace, you will find it, when you learn to look 
by faith on Him, ' the Lamb of God that taketb 
away the sin of the world.' You will carry, it 
may be, the scars of those wounds which you 
have inflicted upon yourself to your grave ; but 
the wounds themselv-es He can heal them, and 
heal them altogether. He can give you back 
the years which the cankerworm has eaten, the 
peace which your sin had chased away, and, as 
it seemed to you, for ever. He can do so, and 
will. ' Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be 
clean ; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.' 
This will then be your prayer, and this your 
prayer will be fulfilled. The blood of sprinkling 
will purge you, and you will feel yourself clean. 
Your sin will no longer be yourself ; you will be 
able to look at it as separated from you, as laid 
upon another ; upon One so strong, that He did 
but for a moment stagger under the weight of a 
world's sin, and then so bore, that bearing, He 
has borne it away for ever." 

in.— The Grace of the Holy Spirit. 

The sanctifying of the Holy Spirit of God 
stands as a truth in immediate connexion with 
the redeeming sacrifice of the Son of God. 
Pentecost followed Calvary. The outpouring of 
the Spirit came through the shedding of the 
blood upon the cross. And the two truths are 



156 BEGINNING LIFE. 

not only united objectively, but in our inward 
consciousness. As our spiritual alienation points 
to the one, our moral helplessness points to the 
other. It is the same need of help, only in dif- 
ferent aspects, that demands atonement, and 
demands the grace of sanctifying. And here, 
too, it is important to seize clearly and keep in 
view the unity of the Divine will. This will is 
in all respects good to us — in all respects power- 
ful to bless us ; and as the sacrifice of Christ is 
the expression of its love and favour for us in 
one direction — so is the agency of the Holy 
Spirit the expression of its love and favour for 
us in a farther and completing direction. Re- 
deemed by the sacrifice of the Son, brought 
back from our alienation and wretched guiltiness 
into love and favour, we are not merely placed, 
as it were, on a new footing before God, but we 
are quickened with a new life ; we are made 
partakers of His Spirit. We enter not only 
into new relations with Him, but we become 
new creatures. The change that is wrought in* 
us is always a moral, and in no sense merely a 
formal change. It is a change from death to 
life, from selfishness to self-sacrifice, from neglect 
or worldliness, or at least indifference, to an 
earnest and solemn communion with God. The 
tendencies of our being point upwards, and no 
longer downwards. " We are created anew unto 
all good works." 



WIIA T TO BELIE VE, 



157 



The Divine Spirit is the constant and only 
agent of this great change in us, and it is ab- 
solutely necessary that we apprehend and be- 
lieve in His influence. " In us, that is, in our 
flesh, there dwelleth no good thing/' No life, 
no righteousness can subsist apart from God. 
And if at any time we fall away from our con- 
sciousness of Divine influence, and still more if 
we lose our faith in it, we make shipwreck of a 
good conscience, and become tempted of our 
lusts. We must look not away from ourselves, 
but beyond ourselves, higher than ourselves — to 
Him " who performeth all things for us," and 
who can alone work in us the works of faith 
and of holiness with power. When we think of 
our pressing moral necessities, the weakness, 
and fears, and darkness that so often beset us, 
and the helpless wavering of our will when the 
stain of temptation falls upon us, it might seem 
that of all things we would be free to look be- 
yond ourselves to the Holy Spirit of God, and 
to make ourselves strong in Him and "in the 
power of His might ; '' but self-will and self- 
reliance often drive out faith and humility from 
our hearts. It is as these live, however, and 
in their life cling to God and to the Spirit of 
God, which He giveth to every one that asketh 
Him, that we alone grow strong to do the will 
of God, and to walk in a way well-pleasing 
unto Him. 



158 BEGINNING LIFE. 

The Three Aspects of Christian truth which we 
have now presented form the main substance ol 
Christian faith, practically considered. There 
are many important points of faith besides, but 
these are, more than anything else, the essential 
substance upon which it lives. They are all 
immediately connected with Christ himself In 
believing on Christ rightly, we believe in them 
all. It is only in the life, miracles, and doc- 
trines of Christ that the character of God is un- 
veiled ; it is only through the death of Christ 
and His ascension into heaven that the full 
reality of the Spirit's influence is made known. 
The love of God, the sacrifice of Christ, the 
love and power of the Spirit, were no doubt all 
present to the mind of St Paul when he said to 
the Philippian jailer, " Believe in the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 

The case of the Philippian jailer was not one 
for minute theological instruction. He did not 
want to have a system of thought set before 
him. He wanted a living truth on which he 
could rest — a living Saviour to whom he could 
appeal. And the case of every one of us is 
practically of the same character. We may not 
be plunged into any sudden crisis of spiritual 
torture such as he was ; we may not be over- 
come by a fear which makes us cry out, whether 
we will or not ; but we are equally creatures ol 



WHAT TO BELIEVE. 159 

the same spiritual necessities with him, and ouf 
only strength is where his lay. We can only be 
saved from our sins, and the terror which they 
seldom fail to bring with them, as he was — we 
must "beheve in the Lord Jesus Christ." 

Is it a hard thing to trust in God, and in 
Christ, and in the Spirit of God and of Christ ? 
Yes, it is a hard thing, if we are either sunk in 
self-gratification or self-delusion, in the pride of 
pleasure or the pride of intellect. If we have 
given up our hearts to vanities, and remember 
not that *' for all these things God will call us 
into judgment" — or if we have given up our 
souls to abstraction, and remember not that life 
is more solemn than our theories of it, and death 
more swift than our solutions of them,- — then it is 
hard to cherish a trust of which we do not feel the 
need, for which we have left no room. But if we 
are practically earnest about life and death, if our 
hearts are moved to " seek first the kingdom of 
God and His righteousness," to look beyond the 
present and to prepare for the future, -then the 
faith of Christ will be found to meet our neces- 
sities and aspirations more than anything else. 
The thought of God's unfailing love, and of 
Christ's atoning death, and of the Holy Spirit's 
constant presence and power, will fit into the 
course of our life, and the reality of Divine help 
into which they combine will more nearly touch 
us than all reality besides. 




X. 



WHAT TO AIM AT. 




HE very conception of moral life im- 
plies life under a rule, and directed 
towards an end. It implies, in short, 
an ideal element. It is higher in 
thought and aim than it ever is in practice and 
fact. 

The presence of this ideal element distin- 
guishes the human from the mere animal life. 
The latter is a constant outgoing, an incessant 
activity, and nothing more. It has no interior 
drama, no reflective pauses. The senses are its 
only media and ministers ; impressions are being 
constantly conveyed through them, and move- 
ment is constantly given ofif as the result ; and 



WIIA T TO AIM A T. i6i 

this is all. It would be shocking to think that 
there was anything more, considering how we 
use animal life — how recklessly we squander it 
for our pleasure or our profit. 

It is the distinction of moi*al life that it is 
capable of ** looking before and after," that it 
can reflectively realise its own character and 
purposes ; and it is supposed to rise the higher, 
and become the nobler, the more completely it 
is governed by law, and the more actively it ful- 
fils it. Many, it must be confessed, but feebly 
own this. Instinct and not principle, habit and 
not reflection, guide and control their existence, 
which, in its monotonous or exciting round of 
sensations, can scarcely claim to be higher than 
that of the lower animals. Nay, it may fall 
lower, from the mere circumstance that it is in 
its essence superior, and that it cannot, there- 
fore, be absorbed in a mere sensational activity, 
without losing itself and becoming corrupted. 
We never feel this in regard to the lower ani- 
mals. The constant play and free indulgence 
of sensations in which their life consists, suggest 
only a conformity with their nature; and all 
conformity with nature is beautiful. It is the 
feeling that a mere sensational existence is not 
in harmony with the true nature of man, that 
he has a higher being, which is violated when it 
does not receive exercise and scope, that makes 
us look upon such an existence as' unworthy of 
L 



1 62 BEGINNING LIFE, 

man, and even degrading to him. In point of 
fact, it always is degrading to him. For just 
because he is essentially a higher being, he can- 
not preserve his purity, his healthfulness, (as the 
lower animals do,) in a mere life of sensation. 

Every ethical theory, therefore, has sought to 
raise man above sense, and inspire him with the 
idea of law, however vaguely and imperfectly, 
in many, cases. Even Epicureanism, which, in 
popular language, has become identified with 
mere sensual gratification, and a possible philo- 
sophy thereof, did not profess to regard man as 
a mere animal, without intellectual or moral 
aspirations. It set before him, indeed, pleasure 
as the highest good, but pleasure according to 
his nature, not in disregard or contempt of it. 
Otherwise the pleasure could not possibly be 
his highest good, and a philosophy which in its 
very conception contradicted itself would stand 
in no 7ieed of refutation. We may find much to 
disapprove of in Epicureanism, but we shall not 
find such silliness and contradictoriness in any 
great system of thought which has swayed the 
minds of men. 

Stoicism announced the idea of law as its great 
principle. It set before its disciples a lofty but 
stern and barren ideal. The law of which it 
conceived was an *' immanent necessity of rea- 
son," an unchanging impersonal order governing 
the universe. To this all must submit, and find 



WHAT TO AIM AT. 163 

'peace in submission. "The wise man," says 
Marcus Aurelius, " calmly looks on the game, 
and surrenders with cheerfulness his individual 
existence to the claims of the whole, to which 
every individual as a part ought to be subser- 
vient." This was, beyond doubt, a brave and 
heroic doctrine for heroic creatures. In many 
noble minds in the old Roman world it was a 
spring of genuine greatness ; but a mqral ideal 
which could only appeal to the strength of man's 
will, and which in its very conception excluded 
every element of personal sympathy, was totally 
unfitted for the race as a whole. It started from 
a defective moral basis, and could only reach, 
even in the best, a defective moral standard. 

It is the boast of Christianity that it sets be- 
fore man the only perfect ideal of life ; an ideal 
which at once bases itself on a true interpreta- 
tion of his nature, and which works itself out by 
a living Divine agency, alone fitted eftectually 
to move and educate him. It enunciates even 
more faithfully than Stoicism the idea of law ; 
but then it apprehends and represents this law, 
not as a dead impersonal necessity, but as a liv- 
ing and loving Will in converse with our feeble 
wills, healing and helping their infirmities. It 
merges law, in short, in the holy and blessed 
Will of Christ ; and the ideal which it paints is 
neither a stern moralism, which is always say- 



i64 BEGINNING LIFE. 

ing to itself, " Courage, courage ! whatever is, is 
right ;" nor a poetic self-culture, which aims at 
the fitting and joyous development of every 
natural faculty ; but a life in God, a life in com- 
munion with the Highest ; humble, and pure, and 
self-denying, yet strong, cheerful, and heroic. 
It starts, altogether unlike Stoicism, from the 
recognition of human weakness, but instead of 
holding .out any soft palliations for this weak- 
ness, it only reveals it — to cure it; and from 
the Divine strengthening of the " inner man," it 
builds up the outer life into compact seemliness 
and virtue. 

" All is, if I have grace to use it so, 
As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye." 

This is no inadequate expression of the Chris- 
tian ideal. " For our conversation is in heaven," 
says St Paul, " from whence also we look for the 
Saviour, the Lord Jesus." To have our lives 
fixed in God and in Christ — to preserve a con- 
sciousness of an unseen and higher life ever en- 
compassing ours, and being near to us at once 
as a presence of holiness and of help ; this is the 
aim of the Christian. A true and noble life on 
earth he believes can alone spring from com- 
munion with heaven. It can alone be main- 
tained and grow up into the " measure of the 
stature '* of a perfect life from an increase of this 
communion. All that is good on earth is merely 
a reflection of the good that is above. '^ If there 



WHAT 70 AIM AT. 165 

be any virtue, and if there be any praise,'* God 
is the source of them, and Christ the pattern of 
them. "Whatsoever things are true, whatso* 
ever things are honest, whatsoever things are 
just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever 
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good 
report;" these are prescribed in Christ as our 
example. And the Spirit takes of the things of 
Christ and imparts them to us. " Beholding as 
in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed 
into the same image, from glory to glory, as by 
the Spirit of the Lord." 

This Divine education, after the holy Example 
of our Lord, is the Christian life. The ideal is to 
be like unto Him who lived in constant commun- 
ion with the Father — " who did no sin " — " who 
went about continually doing good." How lofty, 
and yet how attractive, an ideal ! higher than 
any mere dream of inflexible law, yet conde- 
scending to our weakness, in the loving sym- 
pathy and help which it extends to us. This 
element of character makes every difference. 
It is not the mere voice of command that we 
hear — not the mere claim of obedience that is 
exacted from us ; but the voice is that of a 
friend and "elder Brother" — of One who "is 
not untouched with the feeling of our infirmi- 
ties , but who was in all points tempted like as 
we are, yet without sin." The claim is the claim 
of a Love which is ready to help us, which is 



1 66 BEGINNING LIFE. 

constantly helping us, and drawing us within 
the secret folds of its own Divine communion. 

Anything lower than this life of communion 
with God in Christ, is repudiated by the Chris- 
tian ideal as an imperfect and sinful life. It 
may possess much that the world calls virtue — 
it may be honest, industrious, and self-sacrificing 
— it may even shew a strength and consistent 
manliness that some manifestations of the Chris- 
tian life are found to fail in ; but, nevertheless, 
it is of an inferior quality. It not merely comes 
short of, but it does not really touch the Chris- 
tian ideal ; for it is impossible to separate the 
life of man from God without fatal injury to 
that life. If God is, and if we are His creatures, 
our being cannot grow into any healthy or per- 
fect form while we remain divorced in spirit and 
love from Him. Certain elements of character 
may flourish in us, but certain other, and still 
more important elements, must be wanting. 
The rougher excellences of worldly virtue may 
be found, but not the deeper and gentler traits 
of pious affection. When the soul has not 
turned into the light of Divine love, and known 
to rest there amid the confusion and darkness 
of the present, there cannot be the fulness of 
sympathetic intelligence, and the strength and 
patience of hope, out of which the highest cha- 
racter grows. There may be much to admire, 
or respect, or even to love, but there cannot be 



WH^T TO AIM AT, 167 

the " beauty of holiness," nor the excellence of 
charity. These only live and flourish in the 
soul which has been awakened to a conscfous- 
ness of Divine communion, and which, even in 
moments when it may fall below this com- 
munion, and* forget its kindred with heaven, is 
yet sustained by a living love, binding it with a 
quiet embrace. Every other life, however ad- 
mirable or lovely for a time, will sink and grow 
dull when the flush of youth is gone, and the 
canker of sorrow begins to prey on its early 
promise. 

This is, perhaps, more than anything, the test 
of the Christian ideal, in comparison with all 
other ideals of life. As time wears on, it grows 
in distinctness, and brightens into a lovelier hue, 
while the ideals of mere culture or worldly am- 
bition grow dim and vanish. The progress of 
years, more than anything, brings out radical 
differences of character. In youth all are much 
alike. The most beautiful youth certainly may 
not appear the most religious — the captivation 
of gay spirits, and of healthful development, 
may carry off the palm ; but afterwards, when 
there is a greater drain upon the springs of life, 
and circumstances bring out more thoroughly 
all that is in us, the attractions of the outward 
cease, and the true character shines forth. Then 
the life wTiich has sought its strength in secret 
converse with the Highest, bears fruit in chas- 



1 68 BEGINNING LIFE, 

tened affections and enduring virtues. It matures 
into beauty and fruitfulness under the very same 
process by which the merely natural life is im- 
paired and worn out. As the vivid brightness 
and genial happiness which give to the latter its 
youthful bloom fade away, there comes forth in 
the former a tempered strength of faith, and 
hope, and charity, which shall never fade, which 
has in it an incorruptible seed, • springing up 
into everlasting life. It is like the contrast of 
the wine in the first miracle which our Lord did 
at Cana of Galilee. Worldly ideals set before 
us the best wine first, and *' afterwards, when 
men have well drunk, then that which is worse;" 
but in the Christian ideal, " the best wine is ever 
kept until now ! " The last is always the best. 
The character ripens as it is proved, until at 
length it passes into the perfect form of that life 
above, which is at once its consummaj:ion and 
its source. 

There is nothing more important for young 
men than to keep steadily before them the 
Christian ideal of life. Nothing lower should 
satisfy them. Nothing less will bless them. 
This may seem a hard saying. When we think 
of what life for the most part is, and what the 
life of the young too often is, it may appear 
as a day-dream to set forth this ideal as its 
aim and end — to have the " life hid with Christ 



WHAT TO AIM AT. 169 

in God." Surely this is an awful and distant 
reality for us all now, here in this world of 
daily toil, and trivial pleasures, of selfish busi- 
ness, and sometimes as selfish religion. It 
may have done for St Paul to aspire to such 
a life — he who " counted all things but loss for 
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ" — 
who burned to "fill up in his body what re- 
mained of the sufferings of Christ" — who was 
crucified to the world, and " dead unto sin." It 
was a present, a common truth to him that his 
" conversation was in heaven." But shall we use 
such language } it has been asked in our time, 
as the feeling of reality has grown, and men 
have shrunk from comparisons that • seemed to 
shame them, and to be far removed from them. 
Yes, we are bound to use such language ; and 
still more, to keep in view the ideal which it 
suggests. The life of faith, and love, and holy 
converse with God is no mere esoteric blessing. 
It was not merely designed for St Paul, or the 
holy men of old. They urged it constantly 
as the common privilege and good of all Chris- 
tians ; and our wish should be, not to part 
with the words which express it, but to strive 
after the realisation of their blessed meaning. 
It is ideal, no doubt, in its perfection, but it is . 
also real. Nay, it is the only reality worth 
having. And miserably as we may often come 
short, we must on no account lose sight of it 



170 BEGINNING LIFE. 

We shall sink into utter worldliness if we do, 
and the shadows of death shall cover us from 
the light of heaven. 

Let not the Divine ideal, therefore, ever perish 
from your hearts. Quench it not by the dark- 
ness of sinful passion, or the neglect of hardening 
worldliness. Let it live brightly in your inner 
being, amid all the cares and sorrows and doubts 
of time. Whatever may be doubtful, this can- 
not be so — this image of punty and peace and 
heaven. Does It not rise all the more vividly 
against the shadowy background of earth's 
confusions and miseries ? Limit it not by your 
narrowness ; dim it not by your superstition or 
your unbelief Far as you may be from it, still 
lift your eyes toward it. And although, like the 
weary traveller amid Alpine heights, who sees 
before him the glory of the morning light, and 
aims to stand within its moving splendours, which 
vanish as he approaches, you may find it pass 
from the fulness of your possession here, and 
the unfulfilled vision may haunt your dying 
dreams, yet fix steadily your heart upon it, for 
it is yours, although not now and near — the 
sure mark of the prize of the high calling of God 
in Christ Tesus our Lord. 



PART IL 



BUSINESS. 




I. 



WHAT TO DO. 




HE Christian ideal of life has seemed 
to many so far removed from the 
world and its ways, that they have 
been driven to seek after its attain- 
ment in an entire abstraction from the world's 
business and pleasures. They have sought to 
flee from evil, and not to fight with it. But we 
rightly judge that this is at once inconsistent 
with Christian truth and futile as a moral aim. 
Our faith is "the victory that overcometh the 
world," and not the beaten foe that flies from it 
The world is not merely the mass of evil and 
misery that is around us, but especially the 
evil that holds our own hearts — the enemy of 



174 BEGINNING LIFE. 

vspiritual life and strength and peace that we 
carry with us wherever we go, and which is 
indeed of^en nearer to us in quiet soHtude than 
in the stirring mart. 

Moreover, as the world is constituted, it is no 
question of choice, but of obvious necessity, that 
most men spend their lives in its business and 
employments. Every one has his work to do. 
The whole fabric of our modern civilisation is 
nothing else than the development of the in- 
dustrial principle which is implanted in our con- 
stitution, and divinely sanctified in this very fact. 
The earth was given to man to dress and keep 
it. He was appointed to find in work the ap- 
propriate activity and happiness of his being. 
And there is no law more clear in principle, more 
sure in result, than that which affixes to social 
industry, prosperity and blessing. The wealth 
of nations is its fruit, the glory of civilisation 
its crown. 

To the young who stand, as it were, on the 
threshold of the great workhouse of the world, 
preparing to take their part in it, it becomes a 
serious and urgent consideration what part they 
are to take in it. After the formation of Chris- 
tian principles, the choice of a profession is the 
most serious consideration that can engage their 
attention. 

Perhaps the first step in the consideration is 
to realise the necessity of having definite work 



WHAT TO DO. 175 

to do, and the real worth, and, if we may say 
so, sacredness of all hon-est work. I'here are 
few men who escape the necessity of adopting 
some calling or profession ; and there are fewer 
still who, if they rightly understood their own 
interest and happiness, would ever think of such 
an escape. For, according to that law of work 
of which we have already spoken, life finds its 
most enjoyable action in regular alternations of 
employment and leisure. Without employment 
it becomes a tedium, and men are forced to 
make work for themselves. They turn their very 
pleasures into toil, and undertake, from the mere 
want of something to do, the most laborious and 
exhausting pastimes. To any healthy nature, 
idleness is an intolerable burden ; and its en- 
forced endurance a more painful penance than 
the hardest labours. 

It is not easy, however, for the young to 
realise this. " Play '* has been such a charm to 
their schoolboy fancy, that they sometimes 
dream that they would like life to be all play. 
They are apt, at least, to take to regular work 
with something of a grudge. They have so 
many delays and difficulties about a profession, 
that time passes on and they miss their oppor- 
tunity. There is no more serious calamity can 
happen to any young man than this ; and many 
a life has been wasted from sheer incapacity of 
fixing on what to do. The will gets feeble in the 



176 BEGINNING LIFE, 

direction of self-denial of any kind, and talents 
which might have carried their possessor on io 
social consideration and usefulness, serve merelv 
to illumine an aimless and pitied existence. 

Young men who are, so to speak, born tr? 
work — to whom life leaves no chance of idleness 
— are perhaps the most fortunate. They take 
up the yoke in their youth. They set cheir 
faces to duty from the first ; and if life should 
prove a burden, their backs become inured to it, 
so that they bear the weight more easily than 
others do pleasures and vanities. In our modern 
life, this is a largely-increasing class. As the 
relations of society become more complicated, 
and its needs more enlarged, refined, and ex- 
pensive, the duty of work — of every man to his 
own work — becomes more urgent and universal. 
There is no room left for the idle. There are 
certainly no rewards to them. Society expects 
every man to do his duty ; and its revenge is 
very swift when its claims are neglected or its 
expectations disappointed. 

But it is at least equally important for young 
men to begin life with an intelligent appreciation 
of work as a whole, and to free their mind from 
the prejudices which have so long prevailed on 
this subject. It is singular how long and to 
what extent these prejudices have prevailed. 
Some kinds of employment have been deemed 



WHAT TO DO. 177 

by traditionary opinion to be honourable, and 
such as gentlemen may engage in ; others have 
been deemed to be base, and unfit for gentle- 
men. Why so ? It would puzzle any moralist 
to tell. The profession of a soldier is supposed 
to be the peculiar profession of a gentleman ; 
that of a tailor is the opprobrium of boys and 
the ridicule of small wits. Is there not some- 
' thing untrue as well as unworthy in the implied 
comparison ? There is surely no reason why 
industrial employments, involving a high exer- 
cise of intelligence and skill, should not be as 
honourable as the profession of a soldier ; such 
employments are peculiarly characteristic ot 
civilisation, and rise with it into higher forms of 
utility ; while the mere soldier, even if his need 
should not decrease — as our Peace-utopians 
dreamed some years ago — must yet sink into 
comparative insignificance with the progress of 
Christian enlightenment and the wider diffusion 
of good government. 

Prejudices of this sort, however, are very invet- 
erate, and live long in sentiment after they have 
been defeated in reason. While we are losing 
sight of the usages of feudal times, its traditions 
still cling to us — -traditions which are the legi- 
timate descendants of the ignorance v/hich led 
the mailed baron to boast that he had never 
learned to write — and which made it be deemed 
inconsistent with the position of a gentleman to 

M 



178 BEGINNING LIFE. 

do anything but fight, or hunt, or spend his 
time in wassail. It is not necessary, certainly, 
and would not be well for society to unlearn such 
traditions all at once. They connect age with 
age, and perhaps lend a softening influence to the 
vast changes which the modern development of 
wealth is calling forth ; but they are not the less 
really ignorant ; and when prolonged in force, 
through a time whose social necessities have 
outlived them, they become purely mischievous. 

Such a time is ours. The protective or feudal 
idea of life is gone. The lord and his retainers — 
the castle and its dependants — are images of the 
past. Economical relations are everywhere sup- 
planting the old personal and authoritative rela- 
tions which used to bind society together. Ser- 
vants and masters, traders and customers, tenants 
and landlords, no longer occupy towards each 
other indefinite attitudes of dependence, on the 
one hand, and of patronising favour, on the other 
hand. Each have their own definite position 
and interests — their fixed commercial relation 
to the others ; and within their own spheres and 
duties they are almost equally independent. 

This may be a bad or a good change. It is 
a subject of regret to many who look back upon 
the old state of things with sentiments of emo- 
tion as that to which their youth was familiar, 
and the memory of which pleasantly lingers with 
them. As life becomes a retrospect rather than 



WHAT TO DO. 179 

a prospect, it is natural that the mind should 
cling to the old familiar forms of society, and 
repel, even with dislike, the revolutions taking 
place around it. There is, no doubt, a good 
deal to excite regret in the accessories of the 
change. With the decline of the instincts of 
dependence, those of respectful courtesy and 
obedient charity are apt also to vanish. There 
is less free, lively, and affectionate intercourse 
of class with class, where the commercial feeling 
has displaced the old personal family feeling — 
an evil which may be seen working, with special 
confusion, at present in the department of do- 
mestic service. But whatever may be the dis- 
agreeable results of the change, as we see it 
proceeding under our eyes, it is, beyond ques- 
tion, an inevitable change, which we ought not 
therefore to regret, but to understand and make 
the most of for the good of society as a whole. 
It is the necessary consequence of the enormous 
developmxcnt of industrial life, and the rapidly- 
accumulating wealth touching all classes of 
society, which flows from this development. 
And if society should seem to lose some of 
its old courtesies in the course of things, we are 
to remember that the feeling of independence 
which has sprung up in exchange is a great gain. 
Society cannot lose in the end from its own pro- 
gress. A widening field of human activity will 
be opened up in many directions ; industrial 



i8o BEGINNING LIFE, 

employment of all kinds will rise to an equal 
value and worth, as the means of securing an 
honest and honourable 'livelihood. Men will 
learn to be ashamed of no work which gives 
them a solid footing in the struggling mass of 
social activity around them, and saves them from 
being a burden to others. 

It is the imperative duty of all who recognise 
the vast social revolution that is going on, if they 
cannot help to clear the pathway of the worker 
— male and female — at least to do nothing to 
obstruct it by the promulgation of obsolete 
and mischievous notions. Let the revolution 
silently work itself out. Let young men, and 
young women too, of whatever grade of life, to 
whom there may seem no opening in the now 
recognised channels of professional or domestic 
activity which have been conventionally associ- 
ated with their position, make to themselves, as 
they may be able, an opening in the ranks of 
commercial or mechanical employment. If 
society, from its very increase of wealth and re- 
finement, and the expensive habits which neces- 
sarily flow from this increase, creates obstacles 
to an advantageous settlement in life after the 
old easy manner to many among the young, it 
certainly ought not by its prejudices to stand in 
the way of their launching upon the great world 
of life in their own behalf, and attaining to what 
industrial independence and prosperity they can. 



WHAT TO DO. i8i 

It is at least a right and wise feeling for the 
young to cultivate — that there is no form of 
honest work which is really beneath them. It 
may or may not be suitable for .them. It may 
or may not be the species of work to which 
they have any call. But let them not despise 
it. The grocer is equally honourable with the 
lawyer, and the tailor with the soldier, as we 
have already said. It is just as really becoming 
a gentleman — if we could purge our minds of 
traditional delusions which will not stand a 
moment's impartial examination — to serve be- 
hind a counter as to sit at a desk, to pursue a 
handicraft as to indite a law paper or write an 
article. The only work that is mo7^e honourable^ 
is work of higher skill and more meritorious ex- 
cellence. It is the qualities of the workman, and 
not the name or nature of the work, that is the 
source of all real honour and respect 

The professions to which life invites the young 
are of very various kinds ; and the question of 
choice among them, as it is very important, is 
sometimes also very trying and difficult. Rightly 
viewed, it ought to be a question simply of capa- 
city. What am I fit for 1 But it is more easy in 
many cases to ask this question than to answer 
it. It will certainly, however, facilitate an answer, 
to disembarrass the mind of such prejudices as 
we have been speaking of. The field of choice 



1 82 BEGINNING LIFE, 

is in this manner left comparatively open. Work 
as such, if it be honest work, is esteemed not for 
the adventitious associations that may surround 
it, but because it offers an appropriate exercise 
for such powers as we possess, and a means of 
self-support and independence. 

There are those to whom the choice of a pro- 
fession presents comparatively few difficulties. 
They are gifted with an aptitude for some par- 
ticular calling, in such a degree that they them- 
selves and their friends discern their bent from 
early youth, and they grow up with no other 
desire than to betake themselves to what is ac- 
knowledged to be their destiny in the world. 
Such cases are, perhaps, the happiest of all ; but 
they are far from numerous. A special aptitude 
is seldom so pronounced in youth. Even where 
it exists, it lies hid many a time, and unknown 
even to its possessor, till opportunity calls it 
forth. There are other cases where the circum- 
stances of the young are such as to mark out for 
them without deliberation on their part the pro- 
fession which they are to follow. Family tradi- 
tions and social advantages may so clearly point 
their way in life that they never hesitate. They 
have never been accustomed to look in any 
other direction, and they take to their lot with a 
happy pride, or at least a cheerful contentment. 
But the great majority of young men are not 
to be found in either of these envied positions. 



WHAT TO DO. 183 

They have their way to make in the world ; and 
they are neither so specially gifted, on the one. 
hand, nor so fortunately circumstanced, on the 
other hand, as to see clearly and without delib- 
eration the direction in which they should turn, 
and the fitting work to which they should give 
themselves. 

Many things must be considered by them and 
for them in such a case which we are not called 
upon to discuss here — which, indeed, we cannot 
discuss here. The accidents of position, with 
Nvhich, after all, the balance of their lot may lie, 
vary so indefinitely that it would be impossible 
to indicate any clear line of direction for them. 
But without venturing to do this, it may be use- 
ful to fix the thoughts of the young upon certain 
general features of the various classes of profes- 
sions that lie before them in the world open for 
their ambition and attainment 

Professions may be generally classified as in- 
tellectual, commercial, and mechanical, exclud- 
ing those which belong to the public service, 
such as the army and navy, and the civil offices 
under Government. These form by themselves 
a class of professions of great importance. But 
the aptitudes which they require are, upon the 
whole,' less determined, and therefore less easily 
characterised, than those which the ordinary 
professions demand. A merchant or a shoe- 



1 84 Bb GINNING LIFE, 

maker, or even a clergyman, may become, 
should circumstances summon him, a soldier or 
a diplomatist, but neither the soldier nor diplo- 
matist could so easily assume the function of the 
merchant, or shoemaker, or clergyman. And 
for the simple reason that the function of these 
last is more definite, or professional, and, there- 
fore, involved a more special aptitude, or one 
more easy of discovery and consideration. Not 
that, for a moment, we would be supposed to un- 
dervalue the inner faculties that go to make the 
excellent soldier or Government official. Only in 
the former case, the qualities of honour, bravery, 
and patriotism, are such as all men ought to pos- 
sess — they are common attributes of a healthy 
humanity ; and in the latter case, the very same 
qualities that point to official employment, and 
would be likely to obtain distinction in it, are 
such as are equally needed for some of the ordi- 
nary professions included in our classification. 

Neither must it be supposed, in making this 
classification, that the names we have used have 
anything more than a general application war- 
ranted by the talk of society, and, therefore, 
sufficiently inteMigible. There are certain call- 
ings which society has agreed to consider more 
intellectual, more of the character of professions, 
and others which it regards as m.ore peculiarly 
of a business or commercial character, and others 
again that are more of the nature of a craft, or 



WHAT TO DO, 185 

handiwork. In point of fact, all are intellectual 
in the sense of calling into exercise the intel- 
lectual powers ; and it may so happen that 
more mental capacity may be shewn in conduct- 
ing affairs of business, or in inventing or applying 
some new mechanical agency, than in the dis- 
charge of the duties of the intellectual profes- 
sions, commonly so called. This does not, 
however, affect the propriety of the classifica- 
tion. The subject-matter of the callings is 
nevertheless distinct. Those of the first class 
deal more largely and directly with the intel- 
lectual nature of man ; they involve a more spe- 
cial mental training ; while those of the other 
two classes deal more with the outward industrial 
activities, and are presumed not to require so 
prolonged or careful an intellectual education. 

This obvious distinction serves to mark gene- 
rally the qualities that are demanded in these 
respective orders of professions. Whether a 
man is to be a clergyman, lawyer, (using the 
word in its largest sense as including the pro- 
fession of the bar) physician, — or a merchant, 
an engineer, or an ordinary tradesman, should 
depend, in a general way at least, on the com- 
parative vivacity and force of his intellectual 
powers. A youth who has but little intellectual 
interest, who cares but little or not at all for 
literary study and the delights of scholastic am- 
bition, is shut out by nature from approach to 



1 86 BEGINNING LIFE, 

the former professions. They are not his calling 
in any high or even useful sense. He may ap- 
proach them and enter upon them, and a certain 
worldly success may even await him in them 
under the favouring gale of circumstances ; but 
according to any real standard of excellence or 
utility, he has missed his proper course in life. 
He may have found what he wanted, but others 
will often have failed to find in him what they 
were entitled to expect. 

Take the case of a clergyman, for example. 
VVe do not forget that in this case there are cer- 
tain qualities of still higher consideration and 
moment than even the intellectual ; but we do 
not meddle with these here. These qualities 
may be supposed by some to isolate the func- 
tion of a clergyman altogether from the ordi- 
nary avocations of life ; but even such a view 
would not aftect the bearing of our remarks. 
Practically, the function of the Christian minis- 
try is and will always be one of the main chan- 
nels into which youthful activity is directed in 
this and every Christian country. Look at the 
work of this ministry then, and it will be obvious 
at once what a fatal deficiency is the want of 
intellectual interest. The very truths with which 
it deals, in their original meaning, their history, 
their moral and social influence, must remain in 
a great degree unintelligible when there is not a 
constant pleasure in studying them. It is need- 



VtHAT TO DO. 187 

less to say that they are so simple that a child 
may understand them. In one sense this is true. 
.But the child-understanding, however precious, 
is not the understanding of the well-instructed 
Scribe, who is able to bring forth from his treasury 
things new and old. It is melancholy to think 
what wreck many make in this way by turning 
the deep things of God into baby-prattle, and 
narrowing the grand circumference of Christian 
truth to their own small circle of ideas. Every- 
w^here Christianity suffers with the decay of 
living thought, and the poverty of intellectual 
comprehension in the clergy ; and there never 
was a darker or sadder delusion than that which 
infected and may still infect certain classes of 
society, that a man whose mental capacities did 
not promise much success in the world might 
yet be useful in the Church. It is not, perhaps, 
too much to say that one half of the evils which 
have retarded the progress of Christian truth, 
and perilled the very existence of the Christian 
Church, have come, not, as is often said, from un- 
sanctified talent, but from the degrading influ- 
ence of mean talents, and narrowness of thought. 
The same is no less true of the Bar or legal 
profession in all its bearings, and of the profession 
of Medicine. Each of these professions demands 
a vivacious intellectual interest, powers of real 
and independent* thought. Neither their princi- 
ples can be grasped, nor their highest applications 



i88 BEGINNING LIFE, 

to the wellbeing of society appreciated, without 
these. All, it may be said, are not required to 
rise so high ; there must be common as well as 
higher workmen in all professions, — " hewers of 
wood and drawers of water," as well as men of 
wide and commanding intelligence. And this is 
true. Only the question remains, whether those 
who never rise above the mechanical routine of 
the higher professions would not have been really 
more happy and useful in some lower department 
of industry. In contemplating a profession none 
should willingly set before them the prospect of 
being nothing but a Gideonite in it. And yet 
this must be the fate, and deserves to be the 
fate, of all who rush towards work for which 
nature has given them no special capacity. By 
aiming beyond their power, they are likely to 
fall short of the competency and success that, in 
some more congenial form of work, might have 
awaited them. 

It seems so far, therefore, that there is a suffi- 
ciently plain line of guidance as to the choice of 
a profession. If your interest is not in study, if 
your bent is not intellectual, then there is one 
krge class of professions for which you are not 
destined. You may be intellectual, highly so, 
and yet you may not choose any of these profes- 
sions ; circumstances may render this inadvan- 
tageous : or, while your intellectual life is inqui- 
sitive and powerful, your active ambition may be 



WHAT TO LO. 189 

no less powerful, and may carry you away. But 
at any rate, if you have not a lively interest in 
intellectual pursuits, neither the Church, nor the 
Bar, nor Medicine is your appropriate profes- 
sional sphere. You can never be in any of these 
a " workman needing not to be ashamed." 

Nor let it be supposed that there is anything 
derogatory in this lack of intellectual interest 
in the sense in which we now mean. It by no 
means implies intellectual ignorance or indispo- 
sition to knowledge, but simply no predominat- 
ing desire for study as a habit and mode of life. 
It is not the book in the quiet room that interests 
you so much as the busy ways of the world, the 
commercial intercourse of men, or, it may be, 
some mechanical craft to which your thoughts 
are ever turning, and your hands inclining. How 
constantly are such difterences observed in boys ! 
Scholastic tastes weary and stupefy some who 
are all alert as soon as the unwelcome pressure 
is lifted from their minds, and their energies are 
allowed their natural play. Their aptitude is *ant 
for classic lore ; their delight is not in lore at all, 
but in active work of some kind, the interest of 
which is of an every-day practical character. 

The simple rule in such a case is — follow your 
bent. It may not shew itself so particularly as 
in some cases we have already supposed ; but, at 
least, it is so far manifest. It is clearly not in 
certain directions, and so far therefore the field 



igo BEGINNING LIFE, 

of your choice is limited. Probe a little deeper 
and more carefully, and it may come more 
plainly into view. And, remember, one bent is 
really as honourable as another, although it may 
not aim so high. The young merchant is just as 
clearly ''called" as the young clergyman, if he 
feel the faculty of business stirring in him. And 
who seem often more called than great mecha- 
nicians, — men often with little general know- 
ledge, and little intellectual taste and sympathy, 
but who have a creative faculty of design, as de- 
terminate in its way as the art of the painter or 
the poet t 

These are special cases. But in ordinary youth 
something of the same kind may be observed. 
There are boys designed by nature for commer- 
cial life ; there are others plainly designed for 
mechanical employment. Nature has stamped 
their destiny upon them in signs which shew 
themselves, if sought after. Let not them and 
their friends try to countersign the seal of nature. 
This is always a grievous harm : a harm to the 
individual, and a possible harm to the world. 

Even where Nature's indications may be ob- 
scure, there seems no other rule than to trace 
and follow them. Some boys of healthy and 
well-developed faculties, or, still more likely, of 
weak and unemphatic qualities, may seem to 
have no particular destiny in the world. Yet 
they have. Their place is prepared for them, if 



WIIA T TO DO. 



191 



they can find it. And their only hope of doing 
so is to observe nature, and follow it. She may 
not have written her lines broadly on their souls, 
but she has put tracings there, which may be 
found and followed. There are a few who may 
seem to find their position in the world more 
by accident than anything else. Circumstances 
determine their lot, and without any thought of 
theirs, they seem to get into the place most 
fitting them. Yet even in such cases, circum- 
stances are often less powerful than are supposed, 
or, at least, they have wrought with nature, and 
this unconscious conformity has proved the 
strongest influence in fashioning such lives to 
prosperity and success. 

It remains to be added that, while the view 
we have expressed of the worth of all honest 
work is to be strongly maintained, there are, no 
doubt, difterences in work which, in relation to 
certain characters and temperaments, assume a 
moral importance. There are professions which 
have capacities of evil for certain natures, as 
there are others which have in themselves 
capacities of good, if rightly used. The saying 
of Dr Arnold, as to the profession of the law, 
may be remembered. It seemed to him a bad 
profession, and he would not, he strongly pro- 
tested, have any of his sons enter upon it. This 
was a narrow, and even false, view. Dr Arnold, 
great man as he was, was not exempt from ex- 



192 BEGINNING LIFE, 

treme prejudices, as this shews. Yet it points^ 
like many extreme views, to a partial truth. 
The law, grand and noble profession as it is in 
its higher, and, indeed, in all its right relations, 
presents, at the same time, peculiar possibilities 
of evil to an unstable or unconscientious will. It 
offers peculiar temptations. And there are other 
professions equally dangerous, if we may so say. 
They are apt to bring into play the inferior, and 
to hold in check the superior, elements of ou-r 
nature. They put a constant strain upon the 
moral life, w^hich it requires very healthy or 
unusual powers to withstand. Such professions 
are not bad, but they are trying ; and it must be 
a serious consideration with the young, and the 
friends of the young, if they are fitted for such a 
trial. 

It would be needless to say, avoid such pro- 
fessions ; because, in point of fact, they are not 
to be avoided. They exist because the neces- 
sities of society demand them, (of course, I am 
not speaking of any but entirely honest profes- 
sions which, in their conception, involve no viola- 
tion of moral principle) ; they flourish as these 
same necessities become more complicated and 
refined ; and while they do so, young men will 
seek their career in them laudably and well. It 
is vain and foolish, in such a matter, to broach 
mere theories — to cry where none will follow. 
But it is our duty to guide those who need 



WHAT TO DO, 193 

guidance ; to say that such a door is open for 
some and not for others. For strong natures, 
there is strong work ; for weak and less certain 
natures, there is also work, but not of the same 
kind. The back is fitted to the burden in a 
higher sense than is sometimes meant, if only 
the back do not overtask its powers, and assume 
.*o carry weight that was never meant for it. 



N 




IL 



HOW TO DO IT. 




UPPOSING a young man to have 
chosen a profession and entered 
upon it, his next aim must be ho\v' 
to do well in it. This must be a 
thought inseparable from his choice, if it has 
been freely and rightly conducted. The pro- 
fession or work which we have selected to do 
in the world, becomes the great channel of our 
regular and every -day activity; and how we 
shall order this activity in the best manner, so 
as most effectually to secure its reward and 
our own happiness, must be an anxiety to all 
beginning life. 

Beyond doubt, the first condition of succeiK:" 



HOW TO DO IT. 195 

in every profession, is earnest devotion to its 
acquirements and duties. This may seem so 
obvious a remark, that it is scarcely worth mak- 
ing. And yet, with all its obviousness, the thing 
itself is often forgotten by the young. They 
are frequently loath to admit the extent and 
urgency of professional claims; and they try to 
combine with these claims devotion to some 
favourite and, even it may be, conflicting pur- 
suit. This almost invariably fails. In rare cases 
it may be practicable with men of varied and 
remarkable powers. But, ordinarily, there is no 
chance of success in professional life for any who 
do not make the business of their profession, 
whatever it may be, their great interest, to which 
every other, save religion, must subordinate 
itself 

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
with thy might," is the motto of all industrial 
activity. In such a time as ours, it is so more 
than ever. If we do not do our work with 
might, others will ; and they will outstrip us in 
the race, and pluck the prize from our grasp. 
"The race is not always to the swift, nor the 
battle to the strong," says the same wise man. 
And this is true in various forms and illustra- 
tions; but scarcely ever in the race of business, 
or in the battle of industrial life. There the 
swiftest wins the prize, and the strongest gains 
in the strife. 



196 BEGINNING LIFE. 

As modern society is constituted, this element 
of strife is everywhere apparent. Competition, 
as it is called, in its action and reaction, makes 
up the great and ever-expanding circle of in- 
dustrial civilisation. There may be many modi- 
fications of this principle demanded, in order to 
the complete and happy development of society. 
It would seem as if such modifications must come 
in the natural course of things, and with a grow- 
ing consciousness of the moral conditions of 
social progress. But whatever checks may await 
the principle — however its operation may be re- 
laxed and softened in various directions — it will 
always remain the essential spring of industrial 
activity. It will always be the fly-wheel of the 
world's business. And being so, it is clear that 
this business must task the earnest and steady 
devotion of all who engage in it. It will not 
wait the delays and offputtings of the man who 
gives it merely a share of his attention. While 
he is dawdling with a clever restlessness, it may 
be, it is passing from his hands into others' with 
a stronger and more persistent hold. Strength 
is everything in such a struggle — strength and 
opportunity ! and the latter waits like a faith- 
ful servitor upon the former. 

It ought to be a first principle, then, in begin- 
ning life, to do with earnestness what we have 
got to do. If it is worth doing at all, it is worth 
doing earnestly. If it is to be done well at all, 



HOW TO DO IT. 197 

it must be done with purpose and devotion. 
Whatever may be our profession, let us mark 
all its bearings and details, its principles, its in- 
struments, its applications. There is nothing 
.about it should escape our study. There is 
nothing in it either too high or too low for our 
observation and knowledge. While we remain 
ignorant of any part of it, we are so far crippled 
in its use ; we are liable to be taken at a disad- 
vantage. This may be the very point the know- 
ledge of which is most needed in some crisis, 
and those versed in it will take the lead, while 
we must be content to follow at a distance. 

Our business, in short, must be the main drain 
of our intellectual activities day by day. It is 
the channel we have chosen for them ; they 
must flow in it with a diffusive energy, filling 
every nook and corner. This is a fair test of 
professional earnestness. When we find our 
thoughts running after our business, and fixing 
themselves with a familiar fondness upon its de- 
tails, we may be pretty sure of our way. When 
we find them running elsewhere, and only resort- 
ing with difficulty to the channel prepared for 
them, we may be equally sure we have taken a 
wrong turn. We cannot be earnest about any- 
thing which does not naturally and strongly 
engage our thoughts. 

It will be found everywhere that the men 
who have succeeded in business have been the 



198 BEGINNING LIFE. 

men who have earnestly given themselves to it 
Far more than mere talents or acquirements 
enthusiasm and energy in work carry the day. 
Everything yields before the strong and earnest 
will. It grows by exercise. It excites con- 
fidence in others, while it takes to itself the 
lead. Difficulties before which mere cleverness 
fails, and which leave the irresolute prostrate 
and helpless, vanish before it. They not only 
do not impede its progress, but* it often makes 
of them stepping-stones to a higher and more 
enduring triumph. 

There are few things more beautiful than the 
calm and resolute progress of an earnest spirit. 
The triumphs of genius may be more dazzling; 
the chances of good fortune may be more excit- 
ing; but neither are at all so interesting or so 
worthy as the achievements of a steady, faithful, 
and fervent energy. The moral elements give 
an infinitely higher value to the latter, while at 
the same time they bring it comparatively within 
the reach of all. Genius can be the lot of only 
a few; good fortune may come to any, but it 
would be the part of a fool to wait for it ; where- 
as all may work with heartiness and might in 
the work to which they have given themselves. 
It is their simple duty to do this. It may seem 
but a small thing to do. No one certainly is 
entitled to any credit for doing it. Yet just be- 
cause it is a duty it will be found bearing a rich 



HOW TO no IT. 199 

reward. The labour of the faithful is never in 
vain. The fruits will be found gathered into his 
hand, while the hasty garlands of genius are 
fading away, and the prizes of the merely for- 
tunate are turned into vanity. 

Where there is an adequately earnest devotion 
to the duties of one profession, it is likely that all 
the more ordinary business qualifications will 
follow. It may be well, however, to specify a 
few of these by way of impressing them upon 
the youthful mind. They are usually associated 
with the position and duties of the merchant and 
the tradesman rather than the barrister or the 
clergyman ; but, in point of fact, they are applic- 
able to all professions. All require them, and all 
suffer from the absence of them. 

Among the most obvious and necessary of 
these qualifications is pimctuality. Whatever we 
have to do should be done at the right time. To 
the busy man there is nothing more valuable 
than time. Every hour and every moment be- 
comes filled up with its appointed duties ; and 
attention to these duties at the moment when 
they fall to be performed is of the very essence 
of a business character. It is marvellous how 
comparatively easy the discharge of business 
becomes when this simple rule is observed, and 
how difficult and complicated it becomes when 
it is disregarded. It may be safely said that no 



200 BEGINNING LIFE. 

man can rise to distinction as a merchant, a 
barrister, or a physician, or indeed in any pro- 
fession involving a complexity of work, without 
a strict observance of punctuality. In some 
professions, it may not be customary to exact 
or expect the same regard to this rule ; but this 
is entirely without any warrant in reason, or the 
nature of the duties to which the indulgence 
may be applied. For it is impossible to conceive 
any duties, not absolutely accidental, beyond 
the rule of punctuality. Touch them with this 
rule, and they will fall into order ; leave them 
independent of it, and inextricable confusion 
will be the result. 

Look at the matter as it plainly appears on 
reflection. If our time be filled up with profes- 
sional duties, every one of these duties falls into 
its own place. There is an appropriate time for 
each — and punctuality is nothing else than at- 
tention to this. But the unpunctual man breaks 
down at some point. The duty remains undone, 
and the time for doing it is past. The inevitable 
result is that he more or less breaks down at 
every subsequent point. It is like the links of a 
chain stretched to the full — every link in its own 
place. But take out or abbreviate one link, and 
all fall into confusion. If a given duty remains 
undone at the proper point, it must encroach 
upon the time of some other ' duty, or remains 
undone altogether. 



HOW TO DO IT, 201 

It might seem an easy thing to be punctual, 
but it is not an easy thing. It does not come 
to us naturally. No habits of order do, as may 
be observed in the utter disorder that charac- 
terises savage life, and low and untutored forms 
of life among ourselves. Punctuality is some- 
thing we have all to learn ; and of every profes- 
sion — of all work — it is one of the first lessons — 
a lesson not only indispensable to ourselves, but 
due to others. How much so, every one knows 
who has to do with the unpunctual man. All 
is deranged by him ; the time of others is wasted 
as well as his own. He becomes a nuisance in 
society ; and men who have real work of their 
own would rather do anything than do business 
with him. 

Every young man, therefore, should acquire 
punctuality among his first professional acquire- 
ments. Let him resolve to keep time, — to do 
everything in its place. Let him not yield to the 
delusion, common enough among the young, that 
this is an unimportant matter, in the power of 
any man, and which he can practise when he has 
more real need for it than as yet he has. Vain 
expectation ! If he begins by neglecting it, he 
will almost assuredly end by neglecting it. No- 
thing is so hard to unlearn as a bad habit of this 
kind. It cleaves to the will even after the reason 
may strongly recognise its selfishness and incon- 
venience. 



202 BEGINNING LIFE. 

Another business qualification, although not 
so essential as the foregoing, is despatch. It is 
less of a moral qualification — more of a mental 
accomplishment. It is, however, in most profes- 
sions, a very important accomplishment. Bis 
daty qui cito dat. And the same thing might be 
said of work, when the quickness with which it 
is done is not the quickness of perfunctory, and 
therefore imperfect performance, but the quick- 
ness of a skilful and ready accomplishment. It 
is one of the great functions of a professional life 
to form this accomplishment ; and every young 
man should certainly aim to have it. First, in- 
deed, he should learn to do his work thoroughly. 
There is nothing can make up for the want of 
thoroughness. If he aim at despatch irrespective 
of this, he commits a fundamental mistake. He 
is like a man sharpening his weapons without 
testing their strength. And there are men who 
seem to do this. They acquire a smart and facile 
activity, which skims over a subject without lay- 
ing hold of it. Despatch, in this sense, is not 
to be studied, but avoided. For it is better to 
do work thoroughly, however slowly or inter- 
ruptedly, than to do work imperfectly, with what- 
ever promptitude. 

With this reserve it is well to cultivate 
despatch in business — not to dally over what 
may be done at once and promptly. Every 
one feels how much more satisfactory it is to 



HO W TO DO IT, 



203 



have work done quickly, if also well. Nothing, 
in fact, more makes the difference between the 
really good workman in any department and the 
inferior workman than the promptitude with 
which he carries out any piece of business in- 
trusted to him. The more complicated business 
becomes, and the more it strains the energies, 
the more wonderfully would it seem to call forth 
these energies in many cases, so that a large 
amount of work is done both better and more 
promptly than a small amount in other cases. 
It is the triumph of method. The genius of 
arrangement overcomes the greatest difficulties, 
and secures results that would have appeared 
incredible without it. 

The despatch that is really desirable comes 
in this way from a close attention to method. 
Quickness itself should not be so much the aim, 
because this may lead to summary and imper- 
fect work ; but quickness following from the per- 
fection of a method which takes up everything 
at the right time and applies to it the adequate 
resources. This is the secret of a genuine promp- 
titude. It is the issue of a right system more 
than anything. 

Every profession implies systejn. There can 
be no efficiency and no advance without it. The 
meanest trade demands it, and would run to 
waste without something of it. The perfection 



204 BEGINNING LIFE. 

of the most complicated business, is the perfec- 
tion of the system with which it is conducted. 
It is this that binds its compHcations together, 
and gives a unity to all its energies. It is like a 
hidden sense pervading it, responsive at every 
point, and fitly meeting every demand. The 
marvellous achievements of modern commerce, 
stretching its relations over distant seas and 
many lands, and gathering the materials of 
every civilisation within its ample bosom, are, 
more than anything, the result of an expand- 
ing and victorious system, which shrinks at no 
obstacles, and adapts itself to every emergency. 
Accordingly, the professional man places the 
highest value upon system. However clever, 
ingenious, or fruitful in expedients a youth may 
be, if he is erratic and disorderly in his personal 
or mental habits, he is thereby unfitted for many 
kinds of work. The plodding and methodical 
youth will outstrip him, and leave him behind ; 
and this not merely in the more mechanical pro- 
fessions, but to a great extent also in the more 
intellectual professions. Life itself, with all its 
free and happy outgoings, is systematic. Order 
reigns everywhere. And in no business of life 
can this great principle be neglected with im- 
punity. Even on those who seem to obey it 
least externally, it operates. The very force 
that sustains them, and which, in its apparently 
irregular action, might seem to be defiant of 



HOW TO DO IT. 205 

all law, IS only preserved at all by some en- 
veloping although undefined order. 

The young must keep before them this neces- 
sity of all business. They may hear it some- 
times spoken of among their fellows with indif- 
ference or scorn. "Red tape" has passed into 
a byword of contempt ; and '' red tape," in the 
sense of a mere dead and unintelligent routine, 
has deserved many hard things to be said of it. 
A man of routine, and nothing else, is a poor 
creature. System, which ceases to be a means, 
and becomes in itself — apart from the very ob- 
ject for which it was originally designed — an 
end, proves itself, in this very fact, a nuisance, 
to be swept away — the sooner* the better. But 
the abuse of a thing is no argument against its 
use ; and it is childish not to see this in any 
case. Routine, in and for itself, has no value ; 
and the mind that settles on the mere outside 
of work, forgetful of its inner meaning and real 
aim, is necessarily a mind of feeble and narrow 
energies ; but routine, as an organ of energetic 
thought and action — of a living, comprehensive 
intelligence, which sees the end from the means 
— is one of the most powerful instruments of 
human accomplishment. And there can be no 
profession- without its appropriate and effective 
routine. 

Let every youthful aspirant carefully learn the 
letter, without forgetting the spirit, of his pro- 



2o6 BEGINNING LIFE. 

fession. Let him subdue his energies to its sys- 
tem, but not allow the system to swallow up his 
energies. Let him be a man of routine, but let 
him be something more. Let him be master of 
its machinery, but capable of rising above it 
With the former he cannot dispense ; without the 
latter, he cannot be great or successful.* 

But there is one qualification, in conclusion, 
more important than all — conscientiousness. 
Whatever be our profession, we should not only 
learn its duties carefully, and devote ourselves 
to them earnestly, but we should carry the light 

* The following remarks on the importance of method in 
business, by the author of '* Essays Written in the Intervals of 
Business," well deserve the attention of the young leader : — 

*' Our student is not intended to become a learned man, but 
a man of business ; not a * full man,' but a * ready man.' He 
must be taught to arrange and express what he knows. For 
this purpose let him employ himself in making digests, arrang- 
ing and classifying materials, writing narratives, and in deciding 
upon conflicting evidence. All these exercises require method. 
He must expect that his early attempts will be clumsy ; he be- 
gins, perhaps, by dividing his subject in any way that occurs to 
him, with no other view than that of treating separate portio*is 
of it separately ; he does not perceive, at first, what things arc 
of one kind, and what of another, and what should be the 
logical order of those following. But from such rude beginnings 
method is developed ; and there is hardly any degree of toil 
for which he would not be compensated by such a result. He 
will have a sure reward in the clearness of his own views, and 
in the facility of explaining them to others. People bring their 
attention to the man who gives them most profit for it j and t*.iis 
will be one who is a master of method. " 



HOW TO DO IT. 207 

and guidance of conscience with us into all its 
details and relations. Why should we par- 
ticularise this ? Conscience, of course, should 
animate and guide our whole life, and our busi- 
ness neither more nor less than other aspects 
of our life. Exactly so. This is the very thin^ 
we desire to shew. And it requires particular 
mention, just because it is the very thing we are 
apt to forget, practically, in the midst of profes- 
sional activity, notwithstanding that it seems so 
obvious. Every profession has its peculiar temp- 
tations — its guiles calculated to lay conscience 
to sleep. Some have more than others ; but 
none can be said to be free from such snares. 
Is it wrong to do this, or allow that ? May cer- 
tain things not be done in the way of business 
that would scarcely be justifiable in private life ? 
May not a professional position be fairly used 
for such and such ends ? Such puzzles for con- 
science beset every profession ; and notoriously 
they often receive solutions in consonance neither 
with religion nor morality. 

Yet the true dictate of conscience every- 
where must be, that there is nothing right or 
lawful in business that would not be so in the 
relations of private life. There cannot be two 
codes of honour or honesty. I cannot be an 
honest man, and not shrink from dishonesty la 
every shape. I cannot use my profession for 
'dny purpose which, apart from my profession, it 



208 BEGINNING LIFE. 

would be evil in me to compass. In everything 
— in the competitions of business, in the conflicts 
of ambition, in the rivalries of trade — Christian 
principle must be my guide. Never with im- 
punity can the light of conscience be obscured, 
nor its scruples overbalanced. 

Let the young take with them this principle 
into the entanglements of the world's affairs. 
Conscience may not always serve them as a 
positive guide. There may be intricacies which 
it cannot unravel. But at least it will always 
serve them as a negative warning. When con- 
science clearly pronounces against any practice 
of business, they must shun it. They must not 
tamper with it. They must be able to court 
the light of day in all they do. It is a sorry 
and pitiable shift when it becomes desirable to 
hide from scrutiny the inner mechanism of any 
profession. 

The business which bases itself on conscience 
is stronger in this very ;act than in the most 
skilful trade manoeuvres. It "is fair, and nothing 
tells in the end so well as fairness. T4ie feeling of 
responsibility and the love of truth give not only 
strength, but " endow with diligence, accuracy, 
and discreetness, those commonplace requisites 
for a good man of business, without which all 
the rest may never come to be ' translated into 
action.' " * The gilding wears off the most in-* 
^ Essays Written in the Intervals of Business, p. 98. 



HOW TO DO IT. 



209 



genious devices; the novelty fades away; the 
pretence appears below the mask ; but the true 
gold of principle shines the more brightly the 
more it is tested, and endures as fresh as ever 
after all changes. 



O 



PART III. 



STUDY. 




I. 



HOW TO READ. 




HE busiest professional life has its 
moments of leisure. It is the im- 
pulse and duty of every right-minded 
man to secure time for himself and 
his personal culture, as well as time for his 
business. This is something quite different 
from allowing any favourite or distracting pur- 
suit to interfere with business. The one course, 
all men who would succeed in their profession 
will shun. The other course, all men who would 
not be mere professional machines will follow. 

And what never ceases to be more or less a 
duty throughout life, is an imperative duty to 
the young. Their hours of leisure recur regu- 



214 BEGINNING LIFE. 

larly, their professional work has its formal limits 
of time ; and beyond these limits, they have 
comparatively few cares or anxieties. Their 
minds are yet fresh and vigorous, athirst for 
knowledge, if not ruined by self-indulgence or 
spoiled by early education. To them those hours 
still in the morning of life which they can devote 
to self-culture, are among the most precious of 
all their life. '' Is it possible,'* it has been asked, 
" to overrate the preciousness of the intervals of 
leisure, which afford a temporary release from 
the daily task, and restore the mind to its self- 
possession, and to the consciousness of its noblest 
powers and its highest aims. To one who is ca- 
pable of appreciating its uses, every such pause 
is an emerging out of the grosser element, in 
which one is carried on blindly by the current, 
into the pure air and clear light, where the feet 
find a firm resting-place. It is an indispensable 
condition of every large outlook on the world 
without, and of all true insight into the world 
within. A condition ; it is that, but nothing 
more. A golden opportunity ; but one which 
may prove worse than useless." The young 
have this opportunity in their own hands. It 
may be wasted to their hurt, or even their ruin, 
but it may also be improved to their highest 
advantage. 

The education of school is the mere portal to 
the higher education which every one may give 



ffOW TO READ. 215 

to himself. In many cases, in fact, it may be 
said that education does not begin till we leave 
school. The mental energies are disciplined and 
brought into activity, the capacity is formed ; 
but the real life of thought is seldom awakened 
till those years of early manhood when most 
men have ceased to be under tutors and gover- 
nors. It is sometimes strange how high mere 
scholastic training may go, and yet leave the 
general intellectual life dull and feeble. In all, 
save very rare cases, it seems to require that 
contact with reality which comes from inter- 
course with the world to quicken and fully 
develop the intellect. And it is only after this 
quickening has begun, that our higher and 
enduring education may be said to proceed. 
No doubt, there are certain elements of edu- 
cation which, if not acquired at school, can 
scarcely ever afterwards be acquired. It is hard 
to learn certain things, after the first freshness 
and tenacity of memory are gone. It is impos- 
sible, perhaps, to learn them thoroughly. No 
man, probably, ever made himself a first-rate 
scholar who had not mastered the peculiarities 
of the ancient classical languages while yet, 
comparatively, a boy. But valuable as such an 
acquisition in every point of view is, it is nothing 
more, strictly speaking, than an instrument of 
education. It is a charmed key to unlock 
treasures of Intellectual knowledge that must 



2i6 BEGINNING LIFE. 

remain closed, or nearly so, to those who cannot 
use it. This capacity of use has not been got 
without mental stimulus and strengthening. Yet 
it is only after the years of reflection and critical 
appreciation have arrived, that even so valuable 
a power can be said to become a living and 
genuine education. 

This must come in all cases from spontaneous 
rather than from forced impulse, from the free 
movement of the awakened mind rather than 
from the constrained and tutored guidance of 
the merely awakening mind. In the stage of 
scholastic pupilage many influences move the 
young, apart from the real desire of knowledge 
— emulation, ambition, the desire to stand well 
in the judgment ot others — motives, " no doubt, 
fair, and liberal, and full of promise, but yet 
entirely distinct from an interest in study itself, 
and quite consistent with a real indiff^erence and 
even distaste for it. It is only when all such 
motives are withdrawn, when the youth is sub- 
ject to no attraction but of the pursuit itself, 
(disengaged from those which had been com- 
bined with it, if they did not supply its place,) 
only when his exertions are animated by this 
purely spontaneous and truly philosophical mo- 
tive, can it be known either by himself or others 
what is really in him. How often has it hap- 
pened that those who. had won the most bril- 
liant distinction in a competitive career have 



HOW TO READ. 217 

sunk into inaction and obscurity, when the im- 
mediate object was attained ; while noiseless 
steps, sustained by the pure love of knowledge, 
and in the face of the greatest difficulties and 
discouragements, have unheedingly and almost 
unconsciously gained a summit of admiring 
fame!''* 

Of this higher self-education, everything that 
a man meets with in this world — all that he ob- 
serves, and all that he does — may be the instru- 
ments. His profession, the accidents which sur- 
round it, the interest which it creates and pro- 
motes, have the effect of sharpening his mind 
to a keener and more real, or of opening it to a 
wider, view of things. While still at school, the 
world appears to us in vague and shadowy out- 
line. We move only on the circumference of 
it. Its exciting realities are at a distance, both 
by reason of our imperfect comprehension of 
them, and the close family life which veils them 
from our gaze. This is the blessing of youth, 
that the dawning intelligence should abide, as it 
were, in a secluded nest of love till it receive 
wings to soar away. But when ^he time of its 
flight comes, there is a great world of knowledge 
opened to it. Things which it only saw dimly 
and far off before are now brought near to it. 

* Bishop of St David's Address to the Members of the Edin- 
burgh Philosophical Institution. 



2i8 BEGINNING LIFE. 

Life, with its intense interests and conflicts, is 
felt to be a reality in which it mingles and has 
its part. Such intellectual experiences spring up 
at eveiy stage of its first progress, and to all who 
improve these experiences there may be in them 
an education of the highest kind. 

In one point of view, no doubt, this knowledge 
of the world is fraught with extreme danger 
to the young. It proves to many of them in 
every succeeding generation little more than the 
*' opening of their eyes " to know good and evil ; 
yet as the change is inevitable, it is useless to 
regret it on this score. It must come, and while 
it brings with it its chances of hurt, it is also a 
great opportunity of intellectual enlargement to 
those who rightly use it. It is something like 
the flight of the young birds from the parent 
nest. The experiment is one of trial, but it 
must be made, and amid its perils there is the 
secret joy of power and of acquisition. The 
world is no longer the roof-tree of branches, 
the warm '' contiguity of shade '* which has 
hitherto sheltered them, but the wide expanse 
of heaven, and the multiplied and glorious 
forms of nature, in whose never-ceasing activity 
they find the strength and happiness of their 
being. 

The world must be to all a constant and in- 
sensible education. To many it is the most real 
and earnest education they ever receive. The 



HOW TO READ. 219 

days of school may never have been to such, ol 
have faded away from their memory. The days 
of spontaneous culture from direct intellectual 
sources may never have come to them ; but their 
intercourse with the world has given forth a 
continued intellectual influence under which 
their powers have been excited and sometimes 
nurtured into rare gifts. It is not such remark- 
able cases indeed that we are now contem- 
plating. But the existence of such cases serves 
to prove to what extent mere converse with life 
and its experiences may be the means not 
merely of making us more clever and skilful, 
but of really developing and enriching our 
mental resources — of cultivating within us a 
ripe and sympathetic faculty of wisdom which 
is one of the highest results of knowledge. 

And if the world of human life be thus educa- 
tive, the world of nature is equally or still more 
so. It is a constant school of high thoughts to 
all who love and study it. Who has not felt the 
singular awakening of intelligence that some- 
times comes in early manhood from a mere walk 
into the quiet country in the fresh morning or 
the still evening ! It is difficult to say how it is — 
but at such times the soul seems to take a start 
— to receive a new insight — to come forth in new 
and more sensitive vigour. Limits which have 
hitherto bound it fall away. Shadows with 



220 BEGINNING LIFE. 

which it has been fighting fly off, and it escapes 
into an atmosphere of divine reality. This is 
the secret of its sudden expansion. It is in some 
measure the same process, although arising from 
a different cause, and wholly free from all evil 
admixture, as that which takes place when the 
youth enters into his first free contact with the 
world. The great face of living fact in either 
case evokes the forces of his being as they have 
not been evoked before. The soul leaps from its 
boyhood trance to meet the vast life outside of 
it, as it circulates in human hearts, or in the com- 
mon responsive heart of nature. 

Communion with nature is apt to lose its 
freshness with the advance of life. There are 
few in whom it preserves the vivid educative 
fervour with which it moved them in youth or 
early manhood. Unless fed by constant cul- 
ture from other sources, it is especially likely 
to fail and exhaust itself. There may be those 
so imperfect in endowment as never to realise 
the educative influences which it so richly pro- 
vides. But with others, it continues a never- 
failing and fresh source of intellectual quicken- 
ing. As they turn ever anew to it, they read 
new meanings in it — they find a new impulse in 
its contemplation ; its sweet influences bind into 
unity or flush with light the knowledge they 
have been painfully gathering from other quar- 
ters. The young, if they know their own happi- 



HOW TO READ. 221 

ness, will carefully cherish this love of nature, 
not as a mere pastime, nor as a mere sensuous 
delight, but as a constant source of intellectual 
life and illumination. Let them go forth into 
its open face with the problems that torment 
them, with the books that puzzle them, with the 
thoughts that are often a weariness and distrac- 
tion ; and it is wonderful what a quiet radiance 
will often steal into their hearts — how burdens 
will be lifted up, and the vision of a comprehen- 
sive Faith dawn upon them in glimpses, if not 
in perfect outline. 

But more directly still than Life or Nature 
must Books be the means of the self-culture 
demanded of the young. Or rather, these must 
co-operate to make the culture of the former 
what it should be. Life, save in rare cases, will 
cease to be a living school, and nature also ; 
both will fail to furnish fresh intellectual expe- 
rience, where the mind is not fed by study in 
the common and more limited sense of the word. 
The love of books — the love of reading — there- 
fore, is the most requisite, the most efficient in- 
strument of self-education. Where this is not 
found in young or in old, all intellectual life 
soon dies out — rather, it may be said never to 
have been quickened. This is the distinction, as 
much as anything, between a mere sensuous life, 
whose only care is what it shall eat and what it 



222 BEGINNING LIFE. 

shall drink, and wherewithal it shall be clothed, 
and an intelligent life which looks " before and 
after/' 

A literary taste, apart from its higher uses, is 
among the most pure and enduring of earthly- 
enjoyments. It brings its possessor into ever- 
renewing communion with all that is highest and 
best in the thought and sentiment of the past. 
The garnered wisdom of the ages is its daily 
food. Whatever is dignified and lofty in specu- 
lation, or refined or elevated in feeling, or wise, 
quaint, or humorous in suggestion, or soaring or 
tender in imagination, is accessible to the lovei 
of books. He can command the wittiest or the 
wisest of companions at his pleasure. He can re- 
tire and hold converse with philosophers, states- 
men, and poets ; he can regale himself with their 
richest and deepest thoughts, with their most 
exquisite felicities of expression. His favourite 
books are a world to him. He lives with their 
characters ; he is animated by their senti- 
ments ; he is moved by their principles. And 
when the outer world is a burden to him — 
when its ambitions fret him, or its cares worry 
him — he finds refuge in this calmer world of 
the past, and soothes his resentment and 
stimulates his languor in peaceful sympathy 
with it. 

Especially does this love of literature rise 
into enjoyment, when other and more active 



HOW TO READ. 223 

enjoyments begin to fade away. When the 
senses lose their freshness, and the limbs their 
activity, the man who has learned to love books 
has a constant and ever-growing interest. When 
the summit of professional life has been attained, 
and wealth secured, and the excitements of busi- 
ness yield to the desire for retirement, such a 
man has a happy resource in himself; and the 
taste which he cultivated at intervals, and some- 
times almost by stealth, amidst the pressure of 
business avocations, becomes to him at once an 
ornament and a blessing. It is impossible to 
overrate the comparative dignity, as well as 
enjoyment, of a life thus well spent, which has 
preserved an intellectual feeling amidst commer- 
cial ventures or sordid distractions, and brightens 
at last into an evening of intellectual wisdom 
and calm. 

It becomes a matter of great importance, 
therefore, to young men, how best to cultivate 
this intellectual taste or love for literature. 
How shall they best order their studies 1 Read- 
ing, with occasional lectures, must be the great 
instrument of all spontaneous education. How 
shall they read to the best advantage } 

It must be obvious at once that mere desul- 
tory reading cannot be the best thing. Whether 
it be liable to all the objections that have been 
urged against it, we need not inquire. Probably 



224 BEGINNING LIFE. 

it is not. There have been those who have 
found in desultory reading a mental stimulus, 
which has not only proved a high culture for 
themselves, but has carried them to heights ot 
intellectual fame. Sir Walter Scott is a notable 
example. He indulged, when a youth, in the 
most indiscriminate and desultory course of 
reading. Whatever came to hand in the shape 
of tale, romance, history, poetry, he devoured 
with a large^ and unregulated appetite. But 
nothing can be made of such rare instances for 
general guidance. An intellect of such capacity 
as Scott's was, in a measure, independent of 
common discipline. The strength of the crav- 
ing itself may be truly said, in his case, to 
have more than '* compensated the absence of 
any outward rule. It fastened instinctively on 
that which was suited to its tastes. It converted 
everything it touched into the nourishment it 
required. Nothing was wasted ; all was digest- 
ed and assimilated, and passed into the life- 
blood of his intellectual system." But what was 
the appropriate aliment of such an intellect as 
Scott's might prove the hurt and even the poison 
of a common mind. Assuredly, it can no more 
be the best thing to read in a desultory manner, 
than to do anything else in a desultory manner. 
No more than our industrial life could prosper 
if we merely did what came to hand, can our 
intellectuai life prosper if we merely read what 



HOW TO READ. 225 

comes to hand. The very idea of intellectual 
discipline implies the application of some rule 
to our studies. 

But if the absence of rule be absurd and hurt- 
ful, it is not less so — often it is more so — to en- 
deavour to order our reading by too strict and 
formal a rule. It is to be feared many young 
men make shipwreck of their plans by too am- 
bitious aims in this direction. For it is a great 
mistake to suppose that the young, and young 
men in particular, have a natural aversion to 
rules. Boys, perhaps, have. But there is a time of 
life when a young man begins to be thoughtful, 
and to project schemes for his self-improve- 
ment, when he is really in more danger of yield- 
ing to an over-formality in his studies than any- 
thing dse. An,d this danger has been prob- 
ably increased by the influence of '* Young Men's 
Associations," and the other institutions by 
which society seeks to help and promote this 
laudable impulse. The field of intellectual 
labour is mapped out by the young man, and 
he gives so much time to this department, 
and so much time to another department. H^e 
thinks it necessary to read certain books, and 
to make digests of them, although, after all, he 
feels very little interest in their contents, and is 
conscious that he gets but little intellectual be- 
nefit from them. He sets a scheme of study 
before him, and he labours at it with an unde- 



22 6 BEGINNING LIFE. 

viating regularity and devotion, which, many 
years after, he will look back upon with incre- 
dulous amazement. 

Now there is something noble, beyond doubt, 
in such conduct. There is a seed of self-disci- 
pline in it which may bear fruit many days after, 
even if the scheme of self-imposed study should 
break down and fail of its ends. But it is a 
serious misfortune — it may prove a ruinous re- 
sult — that it should break down, as such a scheme 
almost certainly will. In its nature it cannot 
last. It will fall to pieces of its own weight. 
For beyond a certain age the intellectual activi- 
ties cannot be drilled after this manner. They 
will not work by mere rule. Especially they 
become impatient of overdone and exaggerated 
rules. Everybody who has tried it, I think, will 
confess that there is nothing so hard as to carry 
on mere routine studies beyond the age of early 
manhood. The will shifts off the irksomeness of 
the duty in every possible manner. Keener intel- 
lectual interests are constantly supplanting those 
which lie to order before us. And the result 
sooner or later always is, that it is the study 
which really interests us that carries the day. All 
others fall aside, and are taken up at always wider 
intervals, till they drop out of sight altogether. 

The truth is, that the man cannot work after 
the same methods as the boy. Spontaneous edu- 
cation cannot proceed on the same principles 



HOW TO READ. 227 

and rules as scholastic education. The latter has 
Its chief support in external rules. It is under 
authority. But the former must be sustained by 
a constant outflow of the internal sympathy in 
which it takes its rise. A man will only continue 
to study that in which he feels a real interest and 
pleasure, constantly prompting him to mental ac- 
tivity. It will not be the books that others may 
suppose to be the right thing for him, but the 
books that he likes, the books that have an af- 
finity with his intellectual predilections, that he 
will read, and that will truly profit him.* 

So far, therefore, it may be concluded, m an- 
swer to the question. How a young man shall read 
to the best advantage ? — that he should select 
some particular department of knowledge which 
he feels interesting, and that within this depart- 
ment he should read carefully and studiously. 
If he only once make this selection, and make it 
rightly, other things will adjust themselves. He 
will not need very definite rules, nor will he 
need to concern himself about strict conformity 
with what rules he may have. The varied and 
desultory reading in which he may indulge will 
adapt itself in various ways to the main intel- 
lectual interest of his life. It will appropriate 
to its purpose the most stray information, while 

* **No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en ; 
In brief, sir, study what you vtost affect " — 

is the compendious advice of our great dramatic Poet 



2^8 BEGINNING LIFE. 

again the vivid central fire of his intellectual 
being will cast a light and meaning often around 
the most desultory particulars. 

It may not seem easy to make such a choice ; 
but every one more or less unconsciously makes 
it. The important matter is to recognise it to 
yourselves, and to build up your intellectual 
education upon it ; because it can be really 
built up in no other manner. It is only by 
studying some particular subject with a view 
to mastering it, or some parts of it, that you can 
ever acquire a really studious insight and power. 
Nothing will enable you to realise your mental 
gifts, and to feel yourselves in the free and use- 
f¥il possession of them, like the triumph of bring- 
ing within your power and making your own 
some special subject, so that you can look from 
the height of an accomplished difficulty, and ad- 
vance from the fulness of a successful faculty. 

The advantage of such a central subject of in- 
tellectual interest is not only that it gives a unity 
to all your other reading, but that it preserves 
the idea of study — of steady and patient work 
in your mind. This is the best cure for desul- 
tory and self-indulgent literary habits. You 
feel that you have got something to do — that 
you are making progress in a definite direction 
— that you are rising to a clearer height of 
mental illumination over some pathway that 
you desire to explore. This is not only plea- 



HOW TO READ. zig 

sant, but it costs you pains, and it is all the 
more pleasant, certainly all the more improv- 
ing, that it does cost pains. For this is a con- 
dition of all genuine education, that it call forth 
a deliberate, anxious, and persistent mental 
action. It may not be a great subject that 
engages your interest, but it is not necessary 
that it should be so in order that you may gain 
great advantages from a studious attention to it; 
for here, as in many cases, the " chase is better 
than the game." The power of mental discern- 
ment, the capacity of inductive inference, of 
sifting confused facts or statements, and pene- 
trating to the life of truth beneath them, are 
the highest gifts to be got. Definite results 
of knowledge are comparatively unimportant; 
for su^h gifts are, so to speak, the sinews of all 
knowledge. And when once you have mastered, 
or done what you can by strenuous energy to 
master, any one thing, you are prepared to enter 
on a wide increase of intellectual possessions. 
To plant your foot on any single spot of know- 
ledge, and make it your own by reading about 
it — by studying it in the light of whatever helps 
you can command — is to brace your mental 
vigour, and to secure it a free and powerful play 
in whatever direction it may be turned. 

Study, accordingly, should be definite. It is 
only some aim in view that can give to your 
intellectual employment the character of study, 



230 



BEGINNING LIFE. 



Reading should neither be desultory nor rou- 
tine — but select. It is only some principle of 
selection that can impart continuity and life to 
your thoughts. What this principle of selection 
should be in each case, it is impossible to deter- 
mine. Every one must be the best judge for 
himself in such a matter. And if he do not 
force nature, or give it too much licence, he will 
have little difficulty in finding what lies closest 
to his interest. To every young man we com- 
mend the wise and weighty words of Bacon in 
his famous Essay on Studies. There is a pi- 
quancy and richness of exaggeration in them, 
here and there, that leave them above any mere 
imitation, but that serve to impress them all the 
more vividly upon the mind. 

" Studies," he says, " serve for delight, for 
ornament, and ability. Their chief use for de- 
light is in privateness and retiring ; for orna- 
ment, is in discourse ; and for ability, is in the 

judgment and disposition of business 

They perfect nature, and are perfected by ex- 
perience : for natural abilities are like natural 
plants that need pruning by study ; and studies 
themselves do give forth directions too much at 
large, except they be bounded in by experience. 
Crafty men contemn studies ; simple men admire 
them ; and wise men use them ; for they teach 
not their own use ; but that is a wisdom with- 
out them and above them, won by observation. 



HOW TO READ. 231 

Read not to contradict and confute ; nor to be- 
lieve and take for granted ; nor to find talk and 
discourse ; but to weigh and consider. Some 
books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, 
and some few to be chewed and digested ; that 
is, some books are to be read only in parts ; 
others to be read, but not cursorily ; and some 
few to be read wholly, and with diligence and 
attention. Some books also may be read by 
deputy, and extracts made of them by others ; 
but that would be only in the less important 
arguments, and the meaner sort of books ; also 
distilled books are like common distilled waters, 
flashy things. Reading maketh a full man ; 
conference a ready man ; and writing an exact 
man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he 
had need have a great memory; if he confer 
little, he had need have a present wit ; and if he 
read little, he had need have much cunning to 
seem to have that he doth not. Histories make 
men wise ; poets, witty ; the mathematics, subtle; 
natural philosophy, deep ; morals, grave ; logic 
and rhetoric, able to contend : '' Abeunt studia 
in mores." Nay, there is no stond or impedi- 
ment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit 
studies ; like as diseases of the body may have 
appropriate exercises ; bowling is good for the 
stone and reins ; shooting for the lungs and 
breast ; gentle walking for the stomach ; riding 
for the head ; and the like. So, if a man s wit 



232 BEGINNING LIFE. 

be wandering, let him study the mathematics ; 
for, in demonstrations, if his wit be called away 
never so little, he must begin again ; if his wit 
be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let 
him study the schoolmen ; if he be not apt to 
beat over matters, and to call up one thing to 
prove or illustrate another, let him study the 
lawyer cases ; so every defect of the mind may 
have a special receipt" 




II 



BOOKS— WHAT TO READ. 




OME books are to be tasted, others 
to be swallowed, and some few to 
be chewed and digested." If this 
was true in Lord. Bacon's time, how 
much more so is it in a time like ours, when 
books have multiplied beyond all precedent in 
the world's history. It has become, in fact, a 
task beyond the power of any man to keep up, as 
it is said, with the rapidly-accumulating produc- 
tions of literature, in all its branches. To enter 
a vast library, or even one of comparatively mo- 
dest dimensions, such as all our large towns may 
boast, and survey the closely-packed shelves — 
the octavos rising above quartos, and duodecimos 



234 BEGINNING LIFE. 

above both — is apt to fill the mind with a sense 
of oppression at the mere physical impossi- 
bility of ever coming in contact with such mul- 
tiplied sources of knowledge. The old thought, 
Ars longUy vita brevis^ comes home with a sort of 
sigh to the mind. Many lives would be wasted 
in the vain attempt. The inspection of a large 
library certainly cannot be recommended to in- 
spire literary ambition. The names that shine 
in the horizon of fame are but specks amid the 
innumerable unknown that look down from the 
same eminence of repose. 

Yet this thought of incapacity — and of the 
vanity as well as the glory of literature — in the 
contemplation of a large library, is rather the 
thought of the ideal scholar than of common 
sense. The latter sees in a great collection of 
books the simple and efficient means of diffusing 
intellectual life through innumerable channels ; 
and literary and political history, too, is pregnant 
with examples of the benefits which have sprung 
from mere vicinity to a well-stored library. It 
is not merely that genius has been excited, 
and the aspiration for fame kindled in some 
hearts where it might have otherwise lain torpid ; 
but it is that hundreds have owned a happier 
intellectual, and often also a happier moral 
stimulus from such an advantage. Lord Mac- 
aulay has spoken of what he himself knew in 
this respect, and especially of an ''eminent 
soldier and distinguished diplomatist who has 



WHAT TO READ. 235 

enjoyed the confidence of the first generals and 
statesmen which Europe has produced in our 
day," and who confessed that his success in life 
was mainly owing to his advantageous position 
when a young man in the vicinity of a library. 
'"^When I asked to what he owed his accom- 
plishments and success, he said to me, When I 
served when a young man in India — when it 
was the turning-point in my life — when it was a 
mere chanCe whether I should become a mere 
card-playing, hooka-smoking lounger — I was 
fortunately quartered for two years in the 
neighbourhood of an excellent library which 
was made accessible to me." 

The influence of books at a certain stage of 
life is more than can be well estimated. The 
principles which they inculcate, the lessons 
which they exhibit, the ideals of life and char- 
acter which they portray, root themselves in 
the thoughts and imaginations of young men. 
They seize them with a force which to after 
years appears scarcely possible. And when 
their faculties in mere restlessness might con- 
sume themselves in riotous frivolity and self- 
indulgence, they often receive in communion 
with bome true and earnest book a right im- 
pulse which turns them to safety, happiness, 
and honour. 

The task of selection perhaps might be fairly 
left to individual taste and judgment. Every 



236 BEGINNING LIFE, 

mind has an eclectic quality which inclines to 
its own proper mental food, and the choice of 
books must in the end mainly depend upon this. 
It may be very doubtful whether the choice is 
likely to be according to the exalted advice of 
Bacon, so that *' every defect of the mind may 
have a special receipt." This is too reflective a 
standard. It is only applicable after all within 
certain limits. To try to nourish the mind on 
what would be mainly micdicine to it, would be 
no more possible than to nourish the body after 
a similar manner. A healthy appetite for what 
is fitting and congenial must be the main guide 
and unconsciously selective instrument of nutri- 
ment in both cases. 

Undoubtedly this appetite is feeble, and in 
many cases perverted. Nature, it may be said, 
does not set the same safeguard around it in the 
mental as in the physical world. The stomach 
rejects unwholesome food, but the minds of the 
young often feed on garbage, and even poison. 
There is some truth in this, but also some ex- 
aggeration. A healthy intellect which goes in 
search of its own intellectual food must be the 
basis of all spontaneous education. The cases 
in which this interest assumes a perverted crav- 
ing are not so much cases for advice as for defi- 
nite curative treatment of some kind. Our chief 
aim must be to offer some remarks which may 
serve to guide the healthy faculty for know- 



WHAT TO READ. 237 

ledge. These remarks may be in the shape of 
warning as well as advice ; but the desire after 
self-improvement and intellectual discipline must 
be assumed in all who are likely to derive any 
benefit from them. 

While books have multiplied in such numbers, 
it may be truly said that good books are by no 
means oppressively numerous. They have not 
grown certainly in proportion to the general 
increase of literary productions. And there are 
those who delight to reckon up how few really 
f>rst-rate authors they would be pleased to take 
with them into studious and contented retire- 
ment. Shall we say that the young man should 
select a few such authors, and confine himself to 
their diligent and recurring study.'* How ad- 
mirably would they mould his principles and 
refine his taste, and inspire and chasten his whole 
intellectual life ! But this is really what the 
young man will never do, or almost never. Such 
schemes of studious devotion to a few great 
authors are rather the dreams of elder ease, and 
an over-curious culture, than ideas that ever 
enter into the heads of the young. They re- 
main dreams for the most part even with those 
who delight to court them. In conformity with 
their source, moreover, they are generally con- 
fined to authors of an older time, when thought 
seemed riper, and wit brighter, and poetry 
flushed with a richer imagrination than in these 



238 BEGINNING LIFE, 

last times. The intellectual Epicurean who would 
feed only on a few choice authors is generally also 
the laudator temporis acti, and this of itself is 
enough to place his recipes for intellectual im- 
provement beyond the sympathy .or imitation of 
the young. For if there is one law more sure 
than another in mental development, it is that 
the young must take their start in thought and 
in taste from the models of their own time — the 
men whose fame has not yet become a tradition, 
but is ringing in clear and loud notes in the 
social atmosphere around him. 

Such very ideal schemes of study, therefore, 
will not do for young men. They will read the 
authors of their time, and find their chief inte- 
rest in these authors. It requires a culture 
which as yet they are only in search of to find 
equal or even a higher interest in older forms of 
literature, and in the great masterpieces of the 
pa^t. 

Books may be classified conveniently enough 
for our purpose in four divisions : — 

1. Philosophical and Theological. 

2. Historical. 

3. Scientific. 

4. Books of Poetry and Fiction. 

The bare enumeration suggests visions of im- 
possible attainrq^ent. Even with such general 
divisions of the field of study before him, every 



WHAT TO READ. 239 

young man must feel how far it exceeds his 
compass. He must choose, if he would do any 
good, some definite portion of the field ; and even 
confine himself mainly to some share of this, if 
he would turn his reading into an instrument of 
real education. The utmost we can hope to do 
is to indicate for his guidance some of the most 
characteristic features of these divisions, and 
some of the books in each that claim the atten 
tion of all that would be students in it. 

I. The first of these divisions may seem less 
!n the way of young men seeking a general cul- 
ture rather than a definite intellectual discipline. 
But, as we have already explained, it is only 
through some special study that any intellectual 
mastery can be gained ; and we commonly find 
that books in philosophy and theology are at 
once amongst the most attractive and the most 
effective sources of such study. The young man 
in the full flush of his opening powers is naturally 
drawn to the examination and discussion of the 
highest problems that concern his being and 
happiness. There is a sanguine daring of spe- 
culation in the fresh and inexperienced mind 
which dashes at questions before which the 
veteran philosopher, warned by many defeats, 
sadly recoils. It may be often very useless in 
its results this youthful speculation, but, if not 
altogether misdirected, it may prove the most 



240 BEGINNING LIFE. 

precious training. The mind rises, from its very 
defeats in such service, more vigorous and more 
elastic. 

The philosophical literature of our country is, 
if not the most erudite and lofty, the richest, the 
most varied, and (not excepting that of France) 
the most intelligible philosophical literature of 
the world. It has the great virtue of keeping 
close to life and fact. And so there are few 
even of its masterpieces which may not be read 
and understood by the general reader. The 
great work of Locke on the *' Human Under- 
standing" may be said to be typical of it in this 
respect. No doubt there are schools of philo- 
sophy among ourselves, as well as in Germany, 
that profess to look down upon such empirical 
philosophy as that of Locke ; but we do not 
now enter into any such questions. The more 
spiritual philosophy may have the advantage ; 
for ourselves we think that it has ; but there is 
nevertheless something peculiarly British in 
the manly and straightforward simplicities of 
Locke's mind, and the intelligible, unpretentious 
character of his philosophy. Every young man 
who has a love for speculation, ought to study 
his works. He should try to master the great 
work we have just mentioned. At any rate, he 
should master his small work on the " Conduct 
of the Understanding;" and to make even this 
little treatise his own thoroughly, and enter into 



WHAT TO READ. 241 

all its meaning, he will find a most bracing and 
wholesome mental exercise. 

The writings of Dr Reid, the great master, if 
not the father of the Scottish philosophy, par- 
take of the same vigorous and homely qualities 
as those of Locke, if of inferior range and grasp. 
The student will have recourse at least to the 
early work of this philosopher — *^ An Inquiry 
. into the Human Mind " — as marking an im- 
portant epoch in British thought, and as cha- 
racterised by some of its most significant and 
instructive features. If he is really a student of 
philosophy, he will not be content .with this, 
but he will delight to trace the developments 
of the Scottish school of thought, from its be- 
ginnings in Hutcheson's *' System of Moral 
Philosophy,'' on through the writings of Reid, 
of Smith, of Stewart, of Brown, and of Hamil- 
ton. The great work of Smith, on the 
'* Moral Sentiments," would of itself prove a 
most valuable discipline to any young phil- 
osopher. 

These are merely hints : of course they can be 
nothing more. There are other names equally 
if not more important. There is the great name 
of Coleridge, who, from his deeper speculative 
sympathies, and richer culture, is more likely 
than any we have mentioned to draw the ad- 
miration of young students. They could not 
cx)me in contact with a higher and more stimu- 
Q 



242 BEGINNING LIFE. 

lating mind in many respects. The *- Aids to 
Reflection " has been to thoughtful young men 
. for two generations, perhaps, more of a handbook 
of speculation than any'other book in the lan- 
guage, and much high-minded and noble seri- 
ousness has sprung from its study. It would be 
difficult to say that, taking all things into con- 
sideration, any book of the kind has higher 
claims upon the attention of the young. Th^ 
great matter to bear in mind is, that variety of 
acquaintance with philosophical literature ought 
not so much to be the object as familiar ac- 
quaintance with and mastery of some particular 
work. The former is the part of the professed 
philosopher — the latter is the proper part of the 
student, to which the other may be added — • 
should opportunity permit. 

The same thing is especially true in regard to 
Theological books. A knowledge of theological 
literature is the business of the professed theo- 
logian. It can only be possible to others in 
rare circumstances. But every thinking man 
should know something of theology, and there 
are young minds that will by an irresistible im- 
pulse seek their main intellectual discipline in 
the reading of theological authors. To such 
minds a few great books in our English theo- 
logical literature would be the appropriate and 
the highest aliment. But who shall venture to 
point out these } If the task is difficult in other 



WHAT TO READ, 243 

departments, it becomes in this almost hopelessly 
embarrassed. 

Men fight for sid'es in theology as they fight 
for nothing else. The polemics of philosophy 
are sometimes keen, but the polemics of theology 
tear society asunder. They are felt to involve 
matters of life and death ; and every passion that 
makes life dear, and every int rest that makes 
death an anxiety, combine to intensify the 
struggle between rival theological systems. 
Peaceful and meditative spirits may sigh over 
this state of things, but probably it will last as 
long as the world lasts, and men are but dim 
searchers for truth amid the shadows of earthly 
existence. 

It arises from this state of things that young 
men have less freedom and openness of view 
in theology than in almost any other department 
of knowledge. They belong, so to speak, to a 
side which guards them jealously, and will let 
them see only one class of books. They are 
often taught to think that there is nothing good 
or excellent beyond these. This is an unhappy 
attempt — unhappy whether it succeeds or whe- 
ther it fails. For, in the one case, a narrow 
sectarianism, which does not so much care for 
truth as for party, is likely to be the result. 
And, in the other case^ the mind is likely, when 
it finds that a game has been playing with it, 
and that there are interesting tracks of theolo- 



244 BEGINNING LIFE. 

gical inquiry of which it has been kept ignor- 
ant, to take a rebound to an opposite extreme, 
and run to wildness. 

It is better, however difficult it may be, to try 
to direct a spirit of inquiry in the young. To 
reject authority in this, any more than in any 
other department of knowledge, is a simple 
absurdity. From the very nature of the in- 
quiry, authority must be here especially valu- 
able. Yet at the same time to abandon free- 
dom, is to abdicate one's right of reason and of 
conscience, from which no good can ever come. 

But who is to assume the office of director.^ 
In reference to our existing theological litera- 
ture it may be safely said, that it would not be 
wise for any one to assume this function save 
in a most general manner. To adjudicate be- 
tween different schools of theological opinion, 
some of which are only in progress of develop- 
ment, all of which have living representatives, 
would be an invidious and ungrateful ta.sk. If 
there are any minds can get satisfaction from 
the clever analysis that may be made of some 
of these schools with a view to warning off the 
young from them, the writer's mind is not of this 
class. The unhappy thing is, that such warnings 
''are more apt to point forwards than backwards, 
and this not through any moral perversity in 
the young, but from the mere insatiable desire 
of knowledge. There is a love in all hearts, and 



WHAT TO READ. 245 

in the young theological heart more than all 
others, for the dangerous. If any book is labelled 
dangerous, there is a rush of curiosity towards it 
which no remonstrances can deter. 

Then there is this special difficulty. One 
constantly feels that he may be more in affinity 
with the spirit of an author whose views he 
might hesitate to recommend to the young, 
than with many authors whose views are of a 
more orthodox character. Who has not felt, for 
example, the charm of Robertson of Brighton's 
sermons, which have circulated so much among 
the young in our day ? There is a life in these 
sermons which sermons but rarely have — an 
energy of fresh, and genial, and loving earnest- 
ness which move the heart and search the 
springs of all religious feeling in the inquiring 
and thoughtful. Yet there are here and there 
rash and exaggerated utterances in them. One 
must take the evil with the good. And surely 
he would be a prejudiced father who would not 
rejoice to see his son moved by such sermons, 
his soul awakened, and life made more earnest 
to him, because they may contain some views 
of doctrine from which he may wish to guard 
his son. The wise parent would accept the good 
and try to avert the evil. He would do this 
by quiet and reasonable counsel, and not by 
mere dogmatism or angry argument. 

Passing from our current or recent theological 



246 BEGINNING LIFE. 

literature, there are three great writers, each 
marking a century, we may say, of our past 
English theology, that may be very confidently 
recommended to the study of young men. 
These writers are Butler, Leighton, and Hooker. 
— Butler, a master of theological argument, 
strong in logic, calm in spirit, comprehensive in 
aim. — Leighton, like Pascal, a genius in re- 
ligious meditation, deep, reflective, yet quick, 
sensitive, and tender — the beau-ideal of a Chris- 
tian muser ; never losing hold of the most prac- 
tical duties in the most ethereal flights of 
his quaint and holy imagination. — Hooker, a 
thinker of transcending compass, sweeping in 
the range of his imperial mind the whole cir- 
cumference of Christian speculation — rising with 
the wings of boldness to the heights of the Divine 
government, and yet folding them with the sweet- 
est reverence before the Throne. 

There are many other great names in English 
theological literature, but there are none greater 
than these. There are none upon the whole 
that will form so admirable a discipline for the 
young. Some may prefer the passionate and 
majestic pages of Jeremy Taylor — the quaint 
spiritualising felicities of Hall — the didactic 
stately arguments of Pearson — the fervid and 
pleading pathos of Baxter ; but these, and 
many other writers, are more professional, so to 
speak, in their interest. They do not command 
such wide sympathies as the others do. They 



WHAT TO READ. 247 

are less likely to attract, therefore, and less likely 
to influence the minds of the young. 

Before passing from this class of books, it may 
be proper to say a special word or two as to the 
necessity of studying the Book of books — the 
Bible. A feeling of reverence almost prevents 
us from mentioning it in connexion with other 
books, as if it merely claimed its share of atten- 
tion along with them. It is impHed, on the 
contrary, in the whole conception of these chap- 
ters, that its study must lie at the foundation of 
all education. Every aspect of life and duty 
has been viewed by us in the light of the 
Divine Revelation of wljich the Bible is the 
record, ^nd clearly, therefore, its reading must 
occupy a quite peculiar place. It is demanded 
of us in a sense in which the reading of no other 
book is demanded. They may or may not be 
read, but the Bible must be read by us as 
Christians. We neglect a plain and bounden 
duty, and virtually disclaim the Christian char- 
acter, if we neglect to read it. 

Do young men sufficiently realise, even those 
of them who are thoughtful and well-intentioned, 
this necessity of reading the Scriptures } They 
read them, we shall suppose, at church and else- 
where — on Sunday, and .other times too ; but 
are they at pains to understand what they 
read } Do they make the Scriptures a study i 
We fear that by young as by old the Bible is 



248 BEGINNING LIFE. 

often read in a very imperfect and unintelligent 
manner. Not even the same trouble and in- 
quiry are given to it as to other books. And yet, 
more than any book for general perusal, it may 
be said to need such trouble and inquiry. It is 
marvellously adapted, indeed, to the unlearned 
as well as the learned. "He that runneth'' 
may *' read, mark, and inwardly digest " its 
simple truths ; but it also rewards and calls for 
the most patient, earnest, and critical devotion 
of mind. Its pages are fitted for the capacity of 
a child, yet they shew depths which the highest 
intellect cannot fathom. They contain " line 
upon line, here a little and there a little," for 
every docile, however untutored. Christian ; yet 
they also claim, in order to be adequately 
known, the most devoted powers of application 
and reflection. 

Every young man, therefore, should give his 
earnest attention to the reading of Scripture. 
Let him not suppose that he can easily know all 
that it contains. Let him not be contented to 
read a chapter now and then, rather as a duty 
than as a living interest and education. No 
reading should be so interesting to him ; none, 
certainly, can form to him so high an education. 
It is not only his Christian intelligence and 
sensibility that will be everywhere drawn forth 
in the perusal of its blessed pages, but his taste, 
his imagination, and reason will be exercised 



WNA T TO RE A D. 249 

and regaled in the highest degree. Its poetry 
is, beyond all other poetry, incomparable, not 
only in the height of its Divine arguments, as 
Milton suggests, but in '' the very critical art of 
composition." Its narratives are models of sim- 
plicity and graphic life. It abounds in almost 
every species of literary excellence and intel- 
lectual sublimity. It is, above all, the inspired 
Word of God — the source of all spiritual truth 
and illumination. Whatever you read, therefore, 
do not forget to read the Bible. Let it be as 
the " man of your counsel, and the guide of your 
right hand," as a "light to your feet, and a 
lantern to your path." ''The law of the Lord 
is perfect, converting the soul ; the testimony of 
the Lord is sure, making wise the simple ; the 
statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the 
heart ; the commandment of the Lord is pure, 
enlightening the eyes." ''Wherewithal shall a 
young man cleanse his way ? By taking heed 
thereto according to thy word." 

2. If we proceed now to Historical books, the 
task of selection becomes a less difficult one. 
Never, certainly, was an age richer in great his- 
torical works than our own. And not only so, 
but, what is more important still, the spirit of a 
higher historical method has penetrated many 
departments of inquiry, and is working out great 
results. It is the essence of this spirit to search 



250 BEGINNING LIFE. 

reputed facts to the bottom — to explore beneath 
the accumulations of tradition and the glosses 
either of glory or of scandal with which great 
characters have been overlaid ; and although it 
may have in some instances run riot in mere 
opposition to popular and long-standing pre- 
judices, beyond doubt it has cleared up many 
of the outlines of the past, and made it nearer 
and more real to us than it had ever been before. 
Older histories, notwithstanding the fascination 
of their style, and the epic proportions of their 
details — rounded rather to suit imaginary precon- 
ceptions of the subject than its actual exigences — 
have been superseded, and new ones have taken 
their place. Hume, always charming by his 
graceful and flowing narrative, is no longer an 
authority. He was not even a very trustworthy 
reporter of what he read ; and others have read 
far more deeply than he ever did, and turned up 
facts of which he was wholly ignorant. The 
schoolboy fancy of many still living lingers with 
a fond and pleasing regret around the pages of 
Goldsmith's '* History of Rome," and his graphic 
portraitures of Roman character ; but Roman 
history has been revolutionised in its very con- 
ception since Goldsmith's days. 

The spirit of this new historical method is of 
gre^t importance to the young. It lies near to 
the root of all genuine education. The mind 
acquires from it the capacity of looking for the 



WHA T TO READ. 251 

truth — of sifting the essential from the acciden- 
tal — the living from the conventional — and pierc- 
ing below the incrusted dogma of popular nar- 
rative or description to the direct face of facts. 
It learns an instinct of fairness — a tact of discern 
ment not easily seduced by arts of rhetoric or 
by any cleverness of special pleading. And 
there is no gain of education greater and none 
more rare than this power of critical and inde- 
pendent judgment, which cares for what is right 
and true in the face of all partisanship and lies. 
Of the many great historical works which our 
age has produced, there are some so popular and 
universally read that it is needless to recommend 
them. Macaulay's wonderful volumes, as they 
successively appeared, carried captive the minds 
of old and young. The magic flow of his periods 
— the brilliant and dashing colours of his portraits 
— his illuminating comprehension of his subject, 
and the flush of radiance which he poured on 
certain parts of it — his rich political wisdom and 
magnanimous spirit of patriotism — all served to 
give to his '' History of England " an attraction 
which has been seldom paralleled, and which 
only a very rare genius could have wielded and 
sustained. While the young read such a history 
with delighted enthusiasm, they should remem- 
ber that they must return to it and ponder it 
well before they can really get from it the mental 
strengthening and elevation it is fitted to afford. 



252 BEGINNING LIFE. 

The works of Hallam, of Thirlwall and Grote, 
of Milman and Prescott, of Froude and of 
Motley, shew in their mere enumeration what a 
field lies before the student here. The careful 
study of any one of these histories is an educa- 
tion in itself ; and there is no mental task could 
be recommended as more appropriate and more 
valuable to the young man. Take Dean Mil- 
man's " History of Latin Christianity," for 
example, as covering the widest field of facts. 
What a quickening, bracing, and informing study 
would such a book make — all the more perhaps 
that it cannot be read like Macaulay's volumes, 
under the continued pressure of a high-wrought 
interest. In some respects, indeed, it is very 
hard and painful reading, in the old sense of the 
latter word. It costs pains — it strains the faculty 
of attention — it tasks and wearies the memory. 
All great histories, even Macaulay^s, more or 
less do this. To read them as a whole is never 
an easy matter ; and it will be found, in point of 
fact, they are but rarely read and studied so com- 
pletely as they ought to be. The young man 
cannot brace himself to any higher eflfort, or one 
more likely to tell upon his whole intellectual 
life. The study of such works as we have men- 
tioned, or of many others that might be men- 
tioned — Clarendon's graphic pages — Gibbon's 
magnificent drama — may serve to date an epoch 
in his educational development. Many can recall 
how the perusal of such a masterpiece Us Gib- 



WHAT TO READ, 253 

bon's ^' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire " 
served to raise the conception of what the 
human mind could do, and left an indelible 
impress on the intellectual character. 

In studying such works the aim should be to 
' master them, and if possible their subject, so tho- 
roughly as to be able to exercise a free judgment 
as to what you read. To read merely that you 
may repeat the views of the historian, or perhaps 
imbibe his prejudices, is a poor and even an in- 
jurious result. You must read rather that you 
may understand his subject ; and if he is really 
a great historian, he will enable you to do this 
to some extent independently of his own repre- 
sentations. Using his pages, you must yet look 
through them, and endeavour to realise the 
course of facts for yourself Especially aim, by 
an active sympathy and intelligent perception of 
what is going on around you, — of the history that 
is being daily wrought out under your eyes and 
in your own experience, — to get some living appre- 
hension of the past, some real understanding of 
its great events and characters, its social man- 
ners, its laws, institutions, and modes of govern- 
ment, the condition of the people in their diffe- 
rent ranks and relations, the interior of theit 
family life, their diet, their industry, and their 
amusements. It is but recently that historians 
have recognised the necessity of treating some 
of these topics, but it is becoming more and 
more evident that it is such t'^pics, and not 



254 BEGINNING LIFE. 

the mere details of battles or of royal doings, 
that form the real staple of history. What- 
ever contributes to unveil the past, to make it 
an intelligible reality and not a mere shadowy 
picture, is the right material of history ; and 
its highest use is to give such an insight into 
the past as may happily guide and influence 
the future. 

According to the old definition, " history is 
philosophy teaching by examples;" and the 
constant instruction which it presents to the 
student is certainly among its greatest advan- 
tages. While calling into strenuous exercise so 
many faculties of the understanding — attention, 
memory, comprehension — and filling the ima- 
gination with its grand outlines, it ministers no 
less to the moral reason and judgment. It is 
everywhere a drama of moral retribution. And 
so it is that something of the same lofty feeling 
— half-pleasure, half-awe — that comes from the 
perusal of a great tragedy, comes also from the 
perusal of a great history. The realities of a 
higher Divine order, everywhere traversing the 
complications of human intrigue — the confusions 
of earthly politics — shew themselves in unmis- 
takeable radiance. They come forth like the 
handwriting on the wall, stamping themselves 
in silent characters amid all the excitements of 
human conflict, and the promiscuous uproar of 
human passion. 



WHAT TO READ. 255 

The student, therefore, if he learn anything, 
should learn political and moral wisdom in the 
school of history. Such volumes as Macaulay's 
and Motley^s must teach him how political suc- 
cess can only be effectually grounded on fair- 
ness, rectitude, and truth. Manoeuvre may suc- 
ceed, and falsehood triumph for a while, but 
their end is shame and discomfiture. Of the 
many excellences of Mr Motley's historical 
labours, one of the chief is the clearness with 
which he has seized the moral element in his- 
tory, and wrought it into the fabric of his narra- 
tive, not by way of dogmatic obtrusion, but 
simply as a natural part of his subject. The 
reader is not merely thrilled with a vivid story, 
and the life-like delineations of one of the most 
powerful pencils that ever sketched human cha- 
racter and action ; but he is, moreover, touched 
at every point by the unfolding lessons of a 
great moral spectacle. 

3. Of Scientific books it is scarcely for one to 
rspeak who has not given some special attention 
to the subject. Our age, however, is more rife 
in such books as may help the young in culti* 
vating scientific inclinations than any other age 
has been. Of all departments of knowledge^ 
indeed, that of popular science may be said to 
be making the most advance. And the most 
competent judges will allow that much real pro- 



256 BEGINNING LIFE, 

gress may be made in scientific attainment by 
the mere energy of attention, by experiment, 
and careful observation of phenomena, without 
the quahfications of the higher mathematics, 
which fall to the lot of but a few. Certainly 
much of the intellectual discipline of scientific 
study may be got by independent and self- 
directed efiforts. Some of the most distinguished 
names in science have been self-taught students. 
Among the departments of knowledge there 
are those who claim for science the very highest 
function in education. And without entering 
into any polemic on the subject, there can be 
no doubt that it aftbrds educational advantages 
of the noblest kind. It is impossible to study 
the great laws of nature, the wonderful compli- 
cations of its phenomena, and the beautiful rela- 
tions which link and harmonise them, without 
having our mental and our moral faculties 
equally stimulated. Tlie mechanism of the 
heavens — the structure of the earth, and its 
countless living objects — the structure of our 
own bodies — the composition of the air we 
breathe — the light whereby we see — the dust 
on which v/e tread — are all subjects equally 
fitted to discipline and delight our minds. And 
he can scarcely claim, in any sense, to be an 
educated man, who remains entirely ignorant of 
such subjects. It is true that man long remained 
ignorant of them, and that the intellectual civi- 



WHAT TO READ. 257 

lisation of the ancient nations was based but in 
a small degree on any accurate knowledge of 
physical phenomena. But this can be no excuse 
for modern ignorance of the same phenomena. 
It is the mark of a small and contracted mind 
to shun any department of knowledge, and one 
especially of such intense interest and import- 
ance. 

Why, indeed, should there be any conflict 
between one department and another.? Why 
should the advocates of classical and of *' useful" 
knowledge hold high contention, and vex the 
educational atmosphere with their din ? Both 
are excellent in their place. The former never 
could perish out of human culture without ruinous 
loss. The latter must advance as the very con- 
dition of human progress. To some minds the 
former will prove the fitting discipline — to others 
the latter. For the classicist to abuse natural 
studies, or the physicist to abuse classical studies, 
is equally absurd. 

Assuredly the study of nature is no mere dry, 
and " useful " study. It is instinct with poetry 
and thought at every point ; and in our own day 
many writers have clothed the truths of science 
in the most elevated and attractive diction. Sir 
John Herschel, Sir David Brewster, Hugh Mil- 
ler, Mr Lewes, Mr Hunt, and others have all 
written of science so as to interest any but the 
most indifferent minds. And the young student 
R 



258 BEGINNING LIFE. 

who would follow out such studies will find in 
the writings of these well-known authors at once 
their plainest and their highest guides. Such 
works as those of Hugh Miller on geology, and 
Mr Lewes's " Sea-side Studies," and Professoi 
Johnston's " Chemistry of Common Life," and 
Mr Faraday's *' Lectures for the Young," not to 
mention others, shew how numerously books lie 
to his hand in this department of study ; and 
many of these books are marked by the highest 
qualities of thought and expression, with which 
no young mind can come in contact without the 
utmost good. 

In such studies let it be your aim not merely 
to accumulate facts, nor store your memories 
with details, but also to grasp principles. It is 
from lack of doing this that many minds turr 
away in weariness from scientific pursuits. They 
are repelled by needless particulars, whose inter- 
dependence and relation they fail to perceive. 
Most of the writers we have mentioned will help 
the student to a higher point of view than this. 
Most of them, moreover, will inspire him with 
the poetry as well as the utility of his subject. 
And this is a great gain. For youthful study 
advances under a spur of poetic enthusiasm 
more than anything else. Carry this enthusiasm 
with you into the study of nature. Learn to 
appreciate its beauties, to admire its harmonies, 
as you explore its secrets. This is surely the 



WHAT TO READ. 259 

natural result that should follow an increased 
acquaintance with scientific facts. The more 
nature is studied, the more should all its poetry 
appear. 

As one has asked, who has defended somewhat 
extravagantly, but also eloquently and forcibly, 
the value of scientific education,* '' Think you 
that a drop of water, which to the vulgar eye 
is but a drop of water, loses anything in the eye 
of the physicist, who knows that its elements 
are held together by a force which, if suddenly 
liberated, would produce a flash of lightning? 
Think you that what is carelessly looked upon 
by the uninitiated as a mere snow-flake does not 
suggest higher associations to one who has seen 
through a microscope the wondrously - varied 
and elegant forms of snow crystals ? Think 
you that the rounded rock, marked with parallel 
scratches, calls up as much poetry in an ignor- 
ant mind as in the mind of a geologist, who 
knows that on this rock a glacier slid a million 
years ago ? The truth is, that those who have 
never entered upon scientific pursuits are blind 
to most of the poetry by which they are sur- 
rounded. Whoever has not in youth collected 
plants and insects knows not half the halo of 
interest which lanes and hedgerows can assume. 
Whoever has not sought for fossils has little idea 
of the poetical associations that surround the 

* Mr Herbert Spencer — Education, p. 45. 



26o BEGINNING LIFE. 

places where embedded treasures were found 
Whoever at the sea-side has not had a micro- 
scope and aquarium have yet to learn what the 
highest pleasures of the sea-side are." 

4. Books of Poetry and Hction are the last 
class that we have enunciated. In many respects 
they are the most important. To some, indeed, 
it may seem that such books cannot compete 
in an educational point of view with the graver 
compositions of philosophy, history, and of 
science, of which we have been speaking. But 
this would be a narrow judgment. In every 
generation it will be found, on the contrary, that 
the works of what have been called belles lettres 
have exercised over the young a wide and more 
stimulating influence than almost any others. 
And naturally so. For it is the special aim of 
such works to idealise all that is most attractive 
in nature or in life to the young, to paint in the 
most vivid experiences the passions, feelings, and 
aspirations that animate and please them. 

It becomes, therefore, so far as the young are 
concerned, a most important consideration of 
what quality the poetic and fictitious literature 
of their time may be. They will read it. It is 
needless to declaim against novel-reading, or try 
to thwart it. All such attempts betray a narrow 
ignorance of human nature, and, above all, of 
youthful human nature. The nursery tale, and 



WHAT TO READ. 261 

the fascinated fireside that drav/s around it, might 
teach such ignorant moralists a higher lesson. 
The truth is, that the mind of the child — of the 
boy — of the youth — craves as one of its most na- 
tural interests fictitious or ideal representations 
of human life and character,pf events in intricate 
and marvellous combination. Holding as yet 
but slackly to reality, and imperfectly compre- 
hending the entangled panorama of the social 
world around, it is a true education as well as a 
delightful amusement for it to study human 
nature in the mimic scenes of the novelist or the 
poet. 

It can never, therefore, avail to indulge in 
polemic, religious or otherwise, against novel- 
reading. In excess or misdirected, such reading 
is hurtful, and even dangerous, to moral principle, 
as well as intellectual strength ; but any other 
sort of reading would be also more or less hurt- 
ful if excessive and ill directed. The cure for 
this is not abstinence, but regulation. Fiction 
will be always an important and exciting ele- 
ment of education — to the young especially so ; 
and the great matter here and everywhere should 
be to guide their taste, and not vainly to try to 
extinguish it. 

To every Christian parent and teacher it 
should be a source of unfeigned congratulation 
that our modern light literature is of such an 
improved character. It may not only be read 



262 BEGINNING LIFE, 

for the most part with impunity by the young, 
but is fitted in many respects to form a high 
and valuable discipline for them. If any one 
wishes to measure the change that has taken 
place in it, he has only to turn to the most cha- 
racteristic fiction and poetry of the last century, 
and see what a different spirit animates them. 
It is not only that we miss in them the same 
positive character of good, but that we meet 
everywhere with positive elements of evil. The 
moral spirit is not only not pure, but is some- 
times corrupted to an extent that makes us 
shrink from contact with works which in the rare 
power and charm of their genius have become 
immortal. Notwithstanding their varied excel- 
lences, their vigour and robustness of thought, 
the grace, felicity, and finish of their style, their 
bright and ingenious wit, and sparkling, easy- 
hearted gaiety, there are many of the most not- 
able of these works seriously not fit for youthful 
perusal — so deeply poisoned are they with the 
taint of grossness and defiling insinuation. And 
even where this is not the case, there is little 
that is morally elevating or noble in the fictitious 
writings of the last century. Life as a whole — 
in its complete conception of a moral reality, 
struggling with difficulties and beset by tempta- 
tions, and victorious by principle — is but feebly 
represented. The main struggle is that of pas- 
sion — the main interest that of intrigue — all 



WHAT TO READ, 263 

centred round a narrow and comparatively low 
conception of life. The Clarissas and Lovelaces, 
the Leonoras and Horatios, the crowd of Bel- 
indas, Celindas, and Eugenias, and even the 
hearty and courteous pleasantry of Sir Roger 
de Coverley, and the well-meant fun of Isaac 
Bickerstafif, Esq., are but one-sided and inade- 
quate representations. Piquant and interesting 
as they may be, no one would say the young 
could get much good of any kind from the study 
of them. It is in the main fashionable comedy 
or the mere tragedy of lower passion. 

Our present literature presents a marked con- 
trast to these characteristics. It is informed 
with a deeper feeling, and altogether a more 
sacred, a higher idea of life. It is, in fact, 
matter for criticism that our fiction has tres- 
passed too obviously on ethical and religious 
grounds, and sought to point its moral too ob- 
trusively, instead of merely ''holding up the 
mirror" to all that is most beautiful and earnest 
in human faith and life. This is a casual excess 
— the recoil of the spring after having been 
depressed unduly. The advantage is unequi- 
vocal in a moral, whatever it may be in an 
artistic, point of view. All that is most charac- 
teristic and excellent in our present fiction we 
unhesitatingly commend to the perusal of the 
young. There is a pervading presence of good 
in it — the reflection of a spirit that loves the 



264 BEGINNING LIFE. 

good and hates the evil. The follies and vices 
of society are exposed by a Thackeray with 
a pencil which borrows none of its powers or 
piquancy from contact with the degradation 
which it paints. The kindly spirit, warning to 
what is noble and self-sacrificing, rejoicing in 
what is tender and true, everywhere looks from 
beneath the caustic touches of the satirist, or the 
dark colours of the artist* In our most familiar • 
sketches and caricatures there may be sometimes 
feebleness, but there is never pruriency ; a free, 
yet delicate handling pervades them, exciting 
laughter without folly, and warranting their in- 
troduction into families without fear of starting 
a blush on the most modest cheek, or exciting 
the least questionable emotion. 

Looking to the moral effect of our modern 
poetry and fiction upon the young, there is 
nothing more deserving of commendation than 
the increased spirit of human sympathy for 
which they are remarkable. The literature of 
the last age was especially defective in this 
respect. It lacked genial tenderness or earnest 
sympathy for human suffering and wrong. 
Its very pathos was hard and artificial. It 
wept over imaginary sorrows ; it rejoiced in 
merely sentimental triumphs. In contrast 
to this, the poetry and fiction of our time 

* This, we are sorry to say, is scarcely true of some of Mi 
Thackeray's recent delineations — such as ** Lovel the Widower/ 



WHAT TO READ, 265 

concern themselves closely with the common 
sorrows and joys of the human heart. The 
pages of Dickens and Kingsley, and Miss Mu- 
lock and Mrs Gaskell, and Mrs Oliphant and 
George Eliot, are all intensely realistic. A 
deep-thoughted tenderness for human miseries, 
anc|j^ a high aspiration after human improvement, 
animate all of them. It is impossible to read 
their novels without having our moral senti- 
ments acutely touched and drawn forth. The 
same is eminently true of the poetry of Mr 
Tennyson, Mrs Browning, and others. It is 
almost more than anything characterised by a 
spirit of impassioned philanthropy, of intense 
yearning over worldly wrong and error, *' ancient 
forms of party strife," and of lofty longing after a 
higher good than the world has yet known — 

*' Sweeter manners, purer laws, 
The larger heart, the kindlier hand. " 

It is impossible for the young to Jove such 
poetry and to study it without a kindling in 
them of something of the same affectionate 
interest in human welfare and aspiration after 
human improvement. 

In both our fiction and poetry, life is pre- 
sented if not in its fully sacred reality, yet as 
an earnest conflict with actual toils and duties 
and trials — a varied movement, neither of 
frivolity nor profligacy, (as in so much of our 
older imaginative literature,) but of work and 



266 BEGINNING LIFE. 

passion, of mirth and sorrow, of pure affection 
and every-day trial. The picture is realised 
by all as true and kindred. It comes home to 
us, moving us with a deeper indignation at 
wrong, or a holier tenderness for suffering, or a 
higher admiration of those simple virtues of 
gentleness, and love, and long-suffering, which, 
more than all heroic deeds, make life beautiful, 
and purify and brighten home. A literature thus 
true to the highest interests of humanity — seek- 
ing its worthiest inspiration and most touching 
pictures in the common life we all live — in the 
darkness and the light there are in all human 
hearts, the wrongs and sufferings, the joys and 
griefs, the struggles and heroisms that are every- 
where around us ; — such a literature has a seed 
of untold good in it, and, forming as it does the 
chief mental food of thousands of young men, it 
must help to develop virtue, and strengthen true, 
and generous, and Christian principle. It is 
such a literature, although in still grander and 
more sacred proportions, that Milton pictured to 
himself in one of his splendid passages : — *' These 
abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the 
inspired gift of God, rarely bestowed, but 
yet to some (though most obscure) in every 
nation ; and are of power, beside the office of a 
pulpit, to inbreed and cherish in a great people 
the seeds of virtue and public civility; to allay 
the perturbations of the mind, and to set the 



WHAT TO READ. 267 

affections on a right tune ; to celebrate in glori- 
ous and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of 
God's almightiness, and what He works and 
what He suffers to be wrought with high provi- 
dence in His Church; to sing victorious agonies 
of martyrs and saints; the deeds and triumphs 
of just and pious nations, doing valiantly 
through faith against the enemies of Christ; to 
deplore the general relapses of kingdoms and 
states from justice and God's true worship. 
Whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime, in 
virtue amiable or grave, whatsoever hath pas- 
sion or admiration in all the changes of that 
which is called fiction from without, or the only 
subtleties and reflexes of man's thought from 
within— all these things with a solid and tract- 
able smoothness to point out and describe — 
teaching over the whole book of sanctity, 
through all'the instances of example, with such 
delight to those especially of soft and delicious 
temper, who will not so much as look upon truth 
herself unless they see her elegantly dressed: 
that whereas the paths of honesty and good life 
appear now rugged and difficult, though they 
indeed be easy and pleasant, they will then 
appear to all men both easy and pleasant, 
though they were rugged and difficult indeed/' 

It IS unnecessary for us to try to point out 
further those works in our modern poetry and 
fiction which deserve the attention of young 



268 BEGINNING LIFE. 

men. Of course, they will read what is most 
popular and interesting. There is one writer, 
however, neither a poet' nor a novelist, and yet 
in some respects both, whom we feel urged 
to commend to their study — the author of 
'* Friends in Council," "Essays written in the 
Intervals of Business," and "Companions of my 
Solitude," &c. These volumes are charming, at 
once for their literary finish, their genial earnest- 
ness, and their thoughtful, ethical spirit. A 
vivid sense of the sacred power of duty ; a 
quiet, glancing humour, which lights up every 
topic with grace and variety ; a shrewd know- 
ledge of the world and its ways, tinged with 
sadness, pervade them, and are fitted to render 
them eminently impressive and improving to 
the young and book-loving. They invite by 
their easy, genial, and attractive style ; they 
inform, instruct, and discipline by*their broad 
and observant wisdom, and the wide intelligence 
and keen love of truth with which they discuss 
many important questions. 

We should further urge upon young men 
the necessity of extending their studies in the 
lighter departments of literature beyond their 
own age. They must and will read mainly, as 
we have supposed, the fiction and poetry of 
their time, but in order to get any adequate 
culture from this sort of reading they mVist do 
something more. They must study English 



WHAT TO READ. 269 

poetry in its successive epochs, ascending by- 
such stages as are represented by the great 
names of Wordsworth, and Cowper, and Dry- 
den, and Milton, and Shakspeare, and Spenser. 
To study thoroughly the great works of any 
of these poets, especially of Wordsworth, or 
Milton, or Shakspeare, or Spenser, is a last 
ing educational gain. Any youth who spends 
his leisure over the pages of the " Excursion," 
or the " Paradise Lost," or the " Fairy Queen," 
or the higher dramas of Shakspeare, is engaged 
in an important course of intellectual discipline. 
And if you would wish to know the charms of 
Kterary delight in their full frei^dom and ac- 
quisition, you must have often recourse to these 
great lights of literature, and seek to kindle your 
love for "whatsoever hath passion or admira- 
tion " at the flame of their genius. 

Altogether it is evident what a wide field of 
study is before every young man who loves 
books, and would seek to improve himself by 
their study. The field is only too wide and 
varied, were it not that diff"erent tastes will seek 
diff'erent parts of it, and leave the rest compara- 
tively alone. Whatever part you may select, 
devote yourself to it. If history, or science, or 
belles lettres be your delight, read with a view 
not merely to pass the time, but really to culti- 
vate and advance your intellectual life. The 



270 BEGINNING LIFE. 

mere dilettante will never come to anything. 
Read whatever you read with enthusiasm, with 
a generous yet critical sympathy. Make it 
your own. Take it up by lively and intelligent 
application at every point into your own mental 
system, and assimilate it. This is not to be 
done without pains. Many never attain to it. 
And so they read, and continue to read, and 
find no good. They are no wiser nor better 
after than before, simply because they read 
mechanically. They have a sense of duty in 
the matter which prescribes the allotted task, 
but they do not take care that the task be 
interesting as well as imperative. An active 
interest, however, is a condition of all mental 
improvement. The mind only expands or 
strengthens when it is fairly awakened. Give 
to all your reading an awakened attention, a 
mind alive and hungering after knowledge, and 
whether you read history, or poetry, or science, 
or theology, or even fiction of a worthy kind, it 
will prove to you a mental discipline, and bring ' 
you increase of wisdom. 



PART IV. 



RECREATION. 




I. 



HOW TO ENJOY. 




' VERY life that is at all healthy and 
happy must have its enjoyments as 
well as its duties. It cannot bear 
the constant strain of grave occupa- 
tion without losing something of its vitality and 
sinking into feebleness. Asceticism may have 
construed life as an unceasing routine of duty 
— of work done for some grave or solemn pur- 
pose. But asceticism has neither produced, the 
best work nor the noblest lives of which our 
world can boast. In its effort to elevate human 
nature, it has risen at the highest to a barren 
grandeur. It has too often relapsed into moral 
weakness or perversity. Human, nature, as a 
S 



274 BEGINNING LIFB 

prime condition of health, must recreate itself — 
must have its moments of unconscious play, 
when it throws off the burden of work, and 
rejoices in the mere sensation of its own free 
activity. 

And youth must especially have such oppor- 
tunities of recreation. It thirsts for them — it is 
all on the alert to catch them ; and if denied to 
it, it dwindles from its proper strength, or pur- 
sues illegitimate and hurtful gratifications. A 
young man without the love of amusement is an 
unnatural phenomenon ; and an education that 
does not provide for recreation as well as study 
would fail of its higher end from the very ex- 
clusiveness with which it aims to reach it. 

Yet it must be admitted that the subject of 
recreation is one attended with peculiar diffi- 
culties. Not, indeed, so long as youth remains 
at school, and under the guidance of external 
authority. It is then little more than a matter 
of games and healthy exercise, in which the 
animal spirits are chafed into pleasant excite- 
ment, and the physical frame hardened into 
healthy vigour. The proportion which such 
school recreation should bear to school work — 
the best modes of it — ^the games which are best 
fitted for youth in its different stages — and 
the organisation necessary to give them their 
happiest effect — are all points which may re- 
quire attention, or involve some discussion. But 



HOW TO ENJOY. 275 

the peculiar difficulties of the subject do not 
emerge so far. It is only when youth has out- 
grown the scholastic age, and begun life on its 
own account — when it has tasted the freedom 
and the power of opening manhood — that re- 
creation is felt to run closely alongside of 
temptation, and that the modes and measures 
in which it should be indulged are found to 
involve considerations of a very complex and 
delicate character. 

Neither here nor anywhere is it the intention 
of the writer to lay down formal rules, but rather 
to suggest principles. Nothing, probably, less 
admits of definite and unvarying rules than 
amusement Its very nature is to be somewhat 
free from rule. It is the gratification of an 
impulse, and not the following out of a plan. 
To lay down plans of amusement is to contra- 
dict the very instinct out of which it springs, 
and to convert recreation into work. No man, 
certainly, can be kept safe from harm by enclos- 
ing himself in a palisade of rules, and allowing 
himself to eAjoy this, and refusing to enjoy that. 
Moral confusion, and, consequently, weakness, 
is more likely to come from such a course as 
this than anything else. The best and the only 
effectual guide we can have is that of a rightly- 
constituted heart, which can look innocently 
abroad upon life, and which, fixed in its main 
principles and tendencies, is comparatively heed- 



276 . BEGINNING LIFE. 

less of details. It is from within, and not from 
without — from conscience, and not from law, 
that our highest monition must come. Young 
men must seek freedom from temptation 
in the strength of a Divine communion that 
guards them from evil. This is primary. Se- 
condarily, there are certain outward occasions 
of temptations which it may be incumbent 
upon them to avoid, and to which w^e shall give 
a few words in another chapter. 

Primarily and essentially, the heart must be 
rightly fixed in order to innocent enjoyment. 
Nothing else will avail. " Whether ye eat or 
drink, or whatsoever ye do," says the apostle, 
'' do all to the glory of God." There is a pro- 
found significance in this text. Our lives, not 
merely in somic points or relations, but in all 
points and relations, must be near to God. Not 
merely in our solemn moods, or our grave occu- 
pations, but in our ordinary actions, our mo- 
ments of enjoyment, our eating and drinking, 
(the emblematic acts of enjoyment,) must we 
recognise and own the presence of God. The 
grand idea of the glory of God, and the most 
common aspects of life, are in immediate rela- 
tion to one another. 

And this points to an essential and distin- 
guishing characteristic of Christianity. It is no 
mere religion of seasons or places i it is no mere 



now TO ENJOy 277 

series of things to be believed, noi of duties to 
be done ; it rests upon the one, and prescribes 
the other ; but it is more characteristically than 
either a new spirit and life pervading the whole 
moral and mental activities, and colouring and 
directing them at every point The Christian 
is brought within the blessed sphere of a Divine 
communion that animates all his being. From 
the happy centre of reconciliation with God, 
there goes forth in him a life — it may be very 
imperfect, answering but feebly to its own as- 
pirations, yet a life touched in all its energies 
with a Divine quickening, and bearing on all a 
Divine impress. In such a life there is and can 
be nothing unrelated to God. Awful thought 
as the glory of God is, so soon as the soul is 
turned into the light of the Divine love, that 
glory is ever near at hand, and not afar off to it. 
There is nothing common nor unclean to the 
Christian. He cannot lead two lives ; he can- 
not serve the world with the flesh, and serve 
God with the spirit. He may often do this in 
point of fact. The law in his members may 
prove too strong for the better law of his mind, 
and bring him into captivity to the law of sin 
and death in his members. But all this is in 
contradiction to the ideal of the Christian life ; 
it is in no respect reconcileable with it. In its. 
conception, it is a whole and not a part — a whole 
consecrated to God — a living, breathing, har- 



278 BEGINNING LIFE. 

monious reality, all whose aspirations are God- 
ward. 

It is clear that to such a Christian the question 
of enjoyment will not present itself so much in 
detail as in principle. His first concern will be not 
what he should do or not do — whether he should 
gourt this amusement or reject it, take this liberty 
or deny himself it ; but what he is — whether he 
is indeed within the sphere of Divine communion 
and sharing in its blessing. He will not seek 
to mould his life from the outside, but to give 
free play and scope to the Divine Spirit strong 
within him„ that it may animate every phase of 
his activity, and sanctify all that he does. 

If any young man asks, how he is to enjoy 
himself, in what way he may yield to those 
instincts of his nature which crave for amuse- 
ment, he must first ask himself the serious ques- 
tion. Whether he is right at heart ? Has he 
chosen the good } Unless there is a settlement 
.of this previous question, the other can scarcely 
be said to have any place. For if God is not in 
all his life, it must be of little practical conse- 
quence to him whether one enjoyment be more 
or less dangerous than another. Everything is 
dangerous, because undivine to him. He sees 
God nowhere. The light of the Divine glory 
rests on nothing to him ; and the most noble 
work, therefore, no less than the most trivial 
amusement, may serve to harden his heart and 



BOW TU EA'JUY. 279 

leave him more godless than before. But again, 
if he has settled this prime question, and chosen 
the good, then he will carry with him into all 
his indulgences the Spirit of the good. That 
Spirit will ward off evil from him, and guard him 
in temptation, and guide him in difficulty. He 
will not be scrupulous or afraid of this or that ; 
but he will take enjoyment as it comes, and as 
his right. He will feel it to be a little thing to 
be judged of man's judgment, and yet he will be 
careful not to offend his brother. All things 
may be lawful to him, but all things will not be 
expedient He will use a wise discretion — re- 
fraining where he might indulge, using his liberty 
without abusing it, eating whatsoever is set 
before him, asking no questions ; and yet when 
questions are started, obviously sincere, and 
arising out of moral scruples, he will abstain 
rather than give offence, lie will have, in short, 
a wise discernment of good and evil, a tact of 
judgment which will guide him far better than 
any mere outward rules. 

The question. How to enjoy .^ is therefore in its 
right sense always a secondary, never a primary 
question. It comes after the question of duty, 
and never before it ; and where the main ques- 
tion is rightly resolved, the secondary one be- 
comes comparatively easy of solution. Principle 
first : Play afterwards. And. if there be the root 
of right principle in us, we will not, need not, 



28o BEGINNING LIFE. 

trouble ourselves minutely as to modes of amuse- 
ment. We will take enjoyment with a free and 
ample hand, if it be granted to us. We will 
know how to want it, if it be denied to us. We 
will know both how to be abased and how to 
abound ; and in whatever state we are, therein 
learn, like the great apostle, to be content. 

Of one thing we may be sure. Enjoyment in 
i;tself is meant to be a right and blessing, and 
not a snare. This is a very important truth for 
the young to understand. Life is open to them; 
amusement is free to them. They are entitled 
to live freely and trustfully, and enjoy all — if 
only the sense of duty and of God remain with 
them — if only they do not forget that for all 
these things God will bring them into judgment. 
Under this proviso they may taste of enjoyment 
as liberally as their natures crave, and their 
opportunities offer. To preach anything else to 
the young, is neither true in itself nor can pos- 
sibly be good to them. To teach them to be 
afraid of enjoyment, is to make them doubtful 
of their own natural and healthy instincts ; and 
as these instincts remain, nevertheless, and con- 
stantly reassert their power, it is to introduce an 
element of hurtful perplexity into their life. They 
are urged on by nature ; they are held back by 
authority. And if the rein of the outward law 
imposed upon them once break, they are plunged 



HOW TO ENJOY. 281 

into darkness. They have no guide. It is vain 
to enter into this struggle with nature : it is cruel 
and wrong to do it. Nature must have play, 
and is to be kept within bounds by its own wise 
training, and the development of a higher spirit 
within, and not by mere dictation and arbitrary 
compulsion from without. 

There is no point, perhaps, upon which edu- 
cation of 'every kind more frequently fails than 
upon this very point — the education which we 
give ourselves, as well as that which others give 
us, in youth. For it is a mist?vke to suppose, 
as we have hinted in a former chapter, that the 
sole or perhaps the chief danger of young men 
is, that they are too indulgent to themselves. 
Many are so. Many unthinking youths may so 
give the rein to nature in its lower sense that 
every high and pure impulse is destroyed in 
them. But of those who are capable of thought, 
and who aim at self-culture, not a few are more 
likely to break down in their aims from striving 
after too much than too little. They are apt 
to gird themselves with rules, and to lay artifi- 
cial yokes upon the free development of their 
nature, rather than to yield too much to its own 
elastic impulses. They become very stern 
theorists some of these young men, and they 
look on life with a hard and dogmatic assur- 
ance, parcelling out with a formal and ignorant 
hand the good and evil in it. They are wise 



282 BEGINNING LIFE. 

as to the kinds of enjoyment, and rigidly cany- 
out their own maxims, as well as seek to enforce 
them upon others. 

This is not the spirit from which there ever 
groweth a fine and noble character in a young 
man. It lacks the first essential of all youthful 
nobleness — modesty — the freshness of a trustful 
docility. The chance is that it breaks down 
altogether in its theoretic confidence, as ex- 
perience proves too strong for it ; or that it 
matures into a narrow fanaticism which misin- 
terprets both life and religion, and proves at 
once a misery to itself and a nuisance to others. 
Ascetic formality is the refuge of a weak moral 
nature, or the wretchedness of a strong one. 
How far even a noble mind may sink under it, 
■ — to what depths of despairing imbecility and 
almost impiety it may reach, — we have only to 
study the austerities of Pascal to see. We are 
told that " Pascal would not permit himself to 
be conscious of the relish of his food ; he pro- 
hibited all seasonings and spices, however much 
he might wish for and need them ; and he 
actually died because he forced the diseased 
stomach to receive at each meal a certain 
amount of aliment, neither more nor less, 
whatever might be his appetite at the time, 
or his utter want of appetite He wore a girdle 
armed with iron spikes, which he was accus- 
tomed to drive in upon his body (his fleshless 



IfOW TO ENJOY. 283 

ribs) as often as he thought himself in need of 
such admonition. He was annoyed and offended 
if any in his hearing might chance to say that 
they had just seen a beautiful woman. He re- 
buked a mother who permitted her own children 
to give her their kisses. Towards a loving sister, 
who devoted herself to his comfort, he assumed 
an artificial harshness of manner for the express 
pii7'pose, as he acknowledged, of revolting her 
sisterly affection." 

And all this sprung from the simple principle 
that earthly enjoyment was inconsistent with 
religion. Once admit this jirinciple, and there is 
no limit to the abject and unhappy consequences 
that may be drawn from it. The mind, thrown 
off any dependence upon its own instincts, is 
cast into the arms of some blind authority or 
dogmatism which tyrannises over it, reducing it 
more frequently to weakness than bracing it up 
to endurance and heroism. 

No doubt it will be the impulse of every 
Christian man, and it ought no less to be so of 
every Christian youth, to "rejoice with trem- 
bling." While he hears the voice saying to him, 
on the one hand, " Rejoice, O young man, in thy 
youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days 
of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine 
heart, and in the sight of thine eyes ; " he will not 
forget the voice that says to him, on the other 



284 BEGINNING LIFE. 

hand, " But know thou, that for all these things 
God will bring thee into judgment." The voices 
are one, in fact ; and if he is wise he will ac- 
knowledge their unity, and be sober in his very 
mirth, and temper the hour of cheerfulness with 
the thought of responsibility. There is some- 
thing in the heart itself, even in the heart of 
the young, that intimates this as the true mean. 
There is often a monition of warning in the 
very moment of mirth. The joy is well. It is the 
natural expression of a healthy and well-ordered 
frame ; it leaps up to meet the opportunity as 
the lark to greet the morn. The movement of 
nature is as clear in the one case as in the other ; 
yet there is a background of moral conscious- 
ness lying behind the human instinct, and always 
ready to cast the shadows of thought — of reflec- 
tive responsibility over it. Rejoice, it says ; but 
rejoice like one who is a moral being, and whose 
primary law, therefore, is not enjoyment, but 
duty. 

Moreover, there is that which immediately re- 
minds us of the same truth in the result v/hich 
follows all excess of enjoyment. The tide of 
feeling, when it rises to an unwonted height 
of joyful elation — certainly when it allows itself 
to be carried away by mere thoughtless and 
boisterous impulse — almost invariably returns 
upon itself, collapses in reaction and exhaustion. 
Our constitution contains within itself, a check 



HOW TO ENJOY. 285 

to all undue excitement. This check is, no 
doubt, often ineffectual, but it is so at the 
expense of the constitution, and the very 
capacity of enjoyment which may overtask it- 
self. This capacity wastes by excessive use. 
Of nothing may the young man be more sure 
than this. If he will rejoice without thought 
and without care in the days of his youth, he 
will leave but little power of enjoyment for his 
manhood or old age. If he keep the flame ot 
passion burning, and plunge into excitement 
after excitement in his heyday, there will be 
nothing but feebleness and exhaustion in his 
maturity. He cannot spend his strength, and 
have it too. He cannot drink of every source 
of pleasure, and have his taste uncloyed, and his 
thirst fresh as at the first. 

There is need here of a special caution in a 
time like ours. There are young men who 
now-a-days exhaust pleasure in their youth. 
The comparative freedom of modern life en- 
courages an earlier entrance into the world, 
and an earlier assumption of manly manners 
and habits than was wont to be. Pleasure is 
cheaper and more accessible — the pleasure of 
travel, pleasure of many kinds ; and it is no 
uncommon thing to find young men who have 
run the round of manly pleasure before they 
have well attained to man's estate, and who 
are blas4 with the world before the time that 



286 BEGINNING LIFE. 

their fathers had really entered into It. There 
may not be many of those for whom these 
pages are chiefly written of this class ; but some- 
thing of the same tendency exists among all 
classes of the young. They all attain sooner 
to the rights of manhood, and the premature 
use of these rights becomes an abuse. To men- 
tion nothing else, the prevalence of smoking 
among the young is an illustration of what we 
mean. Even should it be admitted that this 
habit can be practised in moderation with im- 
punity, and as a legitimate source of pleasure 
by the full-grown man, it must be held to be 
altogether inappropriate to the young. The 
youthful frame can stand in no need of any 
stimulating or sedative influence it may impart. 
The overworked brain or the overtasked physi- 
cal system may receive no injury, or may even 
receive some benefit — we do not profess to give 
any opinion on the subject — from an indulgence 
which is absolutely pernicious to the fresh, 
healthy, and still developing constitution. And 
that smoking is an indulgence of this class can- 
not be doubted. Granting it to be a permissible 
enjoyment, it is not so to the young. So far as 
they are concerned, it involves in its very nature 
the idea of excess. Their physical constitution 
should contain within itself the abundant ele- 
ments of enjoyment. If healthy and unabused, it 
no doubt does so ; and the application of a nar- 



BOW TO ENJOY, 287 

cotic like tobacco is nothing else than a violent 
interference with its free and natural action. 

The avoidance of all excess is a golden rule 
in enjoyment. It may be a hard, and in certain 
cases an impossible rule to the young. In the 
abundance of life there is a tendency to over- 
flow ; and when the young heart is big with 
excited emotion it seems vain to speak of mode- 
ration. Every one, probably, will be able to 
recall hours when, amid the competitive glad- 
ness of school or college companions the im- 
pulses of enjoyment seemed to burst all bounds, 
and ran into the most riotous excitement ; and 
in the reminiscences of such hours there may 
be the charm as of a long-lost pleasure never to 
be felt again ; but if the memory be fairly in- 
terrogated, it will be found that even then there 
was a drawback — some latent dissatisfaction arxd 
weariness, or something worse, that grew out of 
the very height or overplus of that rapturous 
enjoyment. As a great humorist* has said^ 

" E'en the bright extremes of joy 
Bring on conclusions of disgust.** 

Assuredly the most durable and the best plea- 
sures are all tranquil pleasures. And it is just 
one of the lessons which change the sanguine 
anticipations of youth into the sober experience 
of manhood that the true essence of attainable 
enjoyment is not in bursts of excitement, but in 
* Thomas Hood. 



288 BEGINNING LIFE, 

the moderate flow of healthy and happy, be- 
cause well-ordered, emotion. 

As we set out by saying, it is impossible to 
regard this or any other element of life apart 
from religion. To many no doubt it seems 
widely separated from it. The very name of re- 
creation calls up to them ideas with which they 
would think it an absurdity or even an impiety 
to associate religion. The latter is a solemnity 
— the former is a frivolity, or festivity — and each 
is to be kept in its proper place. To speak of 
religion having anything to do with the amuse- 
ments or enjoyments of the young would appear 
to such to be the wildest absurdity. Yet it is a 
true, and, from a right point of view only, the 
most sober, judgment, that the spirit of religion 
must pervade every aspect of life — that there Is 
no part of our activity can be fully separated 
from it. We must be Christian in our enjoy- 
ments as in everything. The young man must 
carry with him into his recreations not merely 
feelings of honour, but the feelings of justice, 
purity, truth, and tenderness that become the 
gospel. He must do this, if he be a Christian 
at all. At least, in so far as he does not do this, 
he does discredit to his Christian profession. 
He fails to realise and exemplify it in its full 
meaning. 

It is this upon which we must fall back hero 



HOW TO ENJOY, 289 

and everywhere. It is the spirit ot the gospel 
to rejoice, and yet to do so with sobriety ; to 
rejoice where God fills the heart with gladness— 
where opportunity and companionship invite to 
mirth and cheerfulness ; and yet to be sober 
when we think how fleeting all joy is — how soon 
the clouds and darkness follow the glad sunshine 
— how many are dwelling in th® ''house of mourn- 
ing" — what a shadow of death and of judgment 
encompasses all human life. To be cheerful and 
yet to be sober-minded — to laugh when it is a 
time for laughter — to have no gloom in our heart, 
and yet to have no wantonness in it — but to be 
" pitiful and courteous " towards others' sorrow, 
should God spare ourselves from it, — this is the 
right spirit, truly Christian — truly human, (the 
latter because it is the former.) It may seem 
sufficiently simple of attainment ; but its very 
simplicity makes its difficulty. There is nothing 
notable in it — only the harmony of a healthy, 
Christian soul. It is by no means easy of reach, 
but by God's help it may in some measure be 
the portion of all who will humbly learn His 
truth and follow tiis will. 




II. 



WHAT TO ENJOY. 




»OUTH must have its recreations. En- 
joyment must mingle largely in the 
life of every healthy young man — 
enjoyment liberal yet temperate. 
The general proposition does not admit of rea- 
sonable dispute ; but when we descend to details, 
and confider the particular forms of enjoyment 
which the world offers to young men, we find 
ourselves very soon surrounded with difficulties 
Recreation becomes a complex question, in 
which good is greatly mingled with evil ; and 
some of its most familiar forms have long been, 
and probably will long remain subjects of vehe- 
ment argument. 



WHAT TO ENJOY. 291 

Especially does argument arise in reference to 
the very period of life which we are contemplat- 
ing. In younger years, or again in older years, 
the difficulty is less urgent, or at least it solves 
itself more readily. The inexperience of mere 
boyhood protects it from the evil that may be se- 
ductive to the young man ; and again the expe- 
rience of mature years is so far a preservative 
from the same evil. The boy has not yet 
reached the age of action or of self-choice in. 
the matter; the man of experience has already 
formed his practical philosophy of life, and 
taken the direction of his conduct into his own 
hands beyond the control of advice from any 
other. The difficulty lies in the main before 
the young man who is forming his philosophy 
of life : how he shall act in reference to certain 
forms of worldly enjoyment — how far these 
are consistent with a Christian character — how 
far the element of temptation mingled up in 
them should deter him from participation in 
them — how far the element of good in them may 
claim the recognition of his free reason and in- 
dependent judgment. 

Before passing to the consideration of this 
difficulty, however, there are certain forms of 
recreat^'on so obviously and undeniably legiti- 
mate as to claim from us a few words of recom- 
mendation. 

The active sports of boyhood may be, and as 



292 BEGINNING LIFE, 

far as possible should be, carried into early 
manhood. Cricket, or foot-ball, or golf, or what- 
ever game carries the young man into the open 
air, braces his muscles, and strengthens his 
health, and procures the merry-hearted com- 
panionship of his fellows, should be indulged 
in without stint, so far as his opportunities 
will permit, and the proper claims of business 
or of study justify. The primary claims of 
both of these are of course everywhere pre- 
sumed by us. We have only in view those who 
pursue such games as recreations. Those who 
pursue them to the neglect or disadvantage of 
higher claims upon their time, may of course 
turn them, as they may turn all things, into 
occasions 'of evil. 

Our meaning, simply is, that viewing such 
games in their proper character, as sources of 
enjoyment for the leisure hours of youth, they 
are of an absolutely innocent and beneficial 
character. They subserve in the highest degree 
the purposes of enjoyment by exercising pleasur- 
ably the physical system, stimulating the animal 
spirits, and calling forth the feelings of fair and 
honourable rivalry, of earnest and unconceding 
yet courteous competition. 

The healthy enjoyment of these sports might 
be the subject of extended descm)tion, but thi.*^ 
tvould lead us away from our task. Those who 
prize and enjoy them, do not need any s'uch 



WHAT TO ENJOY, 2^1 

description, and others would not be much 
the better of it. It cannot be too strongly 
borne in mind that this enjoyment is to some 
extent a moral as well as a physical gain. 
Moral and physical health, especially in youth, 
are intimately connected; and whatever raises 
the animal spirits without artificially exciting 
them, and stimulates the nervous energy with- 
out wasting it, is preservative of virtue, as well 
as conducive to bodily strength. The happy 
abandonment of cricket or foot-ball, the more 
steady yet equally keen excitement of golf, leave 
their traces in the higher as well as in the lower 
nature ; and, if well used, they are really instru- 
ments of education as well as amusement. 

There is another class of amusements to 
which young men may freely betake themselves 
as they have opportunity — shooting and fishing. 
Both are time-honoured, and both, if not free 
from temptation — as nothing is — are yet so sur- 
rounded with healthful associations as to claim 
almost unqualified approval. There are, no 
doubt, questions — and questions not very easy of 
answer — ^that may be raised in reference to both 
these modes of recreation. It seems strange, 
and in certain moods of our moral conscious- 
ness indefensible, that man should seek and 
find enjoyment in the destruction of innocent 
and happy life around him. It is strange 



294 BEGINNING LIFE, 

and puzzling that it should be so ; and if we 
think merely of the end of such sports, and try 
reflectively to realise them, we are not aware of 
any satisfactory trains of argument by which 
they can be clearly defended. But the truth is, 
there are not a few things in life which con- 
science practically allows, and sense justifies; yet 
which are scarcely capable of reflective vindica- 
tion. They are not subjects of argument, and 
argument only becomes ridiculous and futile 
when applied therein. They answer to strong 
and healthy instincts in us — instincts given us 
by God, and which therefore justify their objects 
when legitimately sought. But the objects 
looked at by themselves have little or nothing 
to commend them to the reason or moral judg- 
ment The destruction of animal life in sport 
seems to be such an object. Viewed by itself it 
has nothing to commend it; it seems almost 
shocking to speak of sport in connexion with it ; 
yet instinct and sense not only justify such 
sport, but approve of it as among the healthiest 
recreations that we can pursue. Any man who 
would argue against either shooting or fishing 
because of the cruelty they seem to involve, is 
regarded as an amiable enthusiast to whom it is 
useless to make any reply. Supposing he has 
all the argument on his side from his point of 
view, sportsmen see the thing from an entirely 
different point of view, and while they do not 



WHA T TO EN JO Y. 295 

care to dispute the argument, they go their 
way quite unimpressed by it, and strong in the 
feeling that their way is in the highest degree 
justifiable. 

It is not the destruction of animal life which 
they directly contemplate. X)n the contrary, 
when this destruction is secured and made easy, 
as sometimes happens, it is rightly said that 
there is no sport. It is the healthful exercise, 
the ready skill, the risks, the adventure, the 
"chase," in short, rather than the ''game" that 
they regard. The sportsman, as he sets out, 
thinks of the breezy morn, or the open day — 
the crisp and bracing air — the walk through the 
fields or by the stream — the excitement of the 
search — the happy adventures with which he will 
attain his object — the pleasure of success — the 
pleasure even should he fail. His mind dwells 
upon every pleasing accessory, and the idea of 
pain to the destroyed animals seldom or never 
occurs to him. 

It is a singular enough fact that angling, 
which to the reflective imagination can certainly 
vindicate itself as little as shooting, has come to 
be esteemed as a peculiarly gentle and innocent 
amusement. Anglers are all of a "gentle craft," 
and a quiet, pensive, peaceful, harmless, happy 
air — ^breathed from the spirit of old Izaak Wal- 
ton, and long before he lived to symbolise it — is 
supposed to rest upon their pursuit. Nothing 



296 BEGINNING LIFE. 

can shew more strikingly how completely it is the 
accessories, and not the end, of this amusement 
that common sense and traditionary feeling con- 
template. It were vain to say that common 
sense and traditionary feeling are wrong. Be- 
yond doubt they are right on such a subject. 
The subject is one which belongs to their pro- 
vince, and not to the province o^ logic. And 
even if the logician should find himself driven 
to argue it from an opposite point of view, he 
would probably be found in his practice, and 
certainly in his ordinary moods of feeling, con- 
tradicting his own argument. 

In addition to such out-door amusements, 
there are various forms of in-door amusement 
which claim some notice. It is more difficult to 
find in-door amusements for young men, for the 
simple reason that healthy and happy exercise 
is the idea which is chiefly associated with, and 
chiefly legitimates recreation on their part. And 
the open air is the natural place for such exercise. 
Yet in-door amusements must also be found. 
Music is one of the chief of these amusements, 
and certainly one of the most innocent and ele- 
vating. 

Of all delights, to those who have the gift or 
taste for it, music is the most exquisite. To 
affix the term amusement to it is perhaps 
scarcely fair. It is always more than this when ^ 



WHAT TO ENJOY., 297 

duly appreciated. Luther ranked it as a science 
next in order to theology. "Whoever despises 
music/' he said, " as is the case with all fanatics, 
with him I can never agree ; for music is a gift 
of God, and not a discovery of man. It keeps 
Satan at a distance; and, by making a man 
happy, he loses all anger, pride, and every other 
vice. After theology, I give music the second 
rank and highest honour; and we see how David, 
together with all the saints, have expressed their 
thoughts in verse, in rhyme, and in song. Most 
of all, I approve these two recreations and 
amusements — namely, music, and chivalrous ex- 
ercises, with fencing, wrestling, &c. ; the first 
chasing away the cares of the heart and melan- 
choly thoughts, the other beneficial in exercis- 
ing and improving the limbs, and keeping the 
body in health.'' 

So Luther, with that manly and healthy in- 
stinct which always characterises him. He loved 
music himself, and always found a solace in it ; 
and every sympathetic, and tender, and beauti- 
ful nature will do the same. It is a charm not 
only in itself, but a charm to keep us from idle 
and frivolous amusements. While stealing the 
senses by its soft witchery, or stirring them by 
its brilliant mystery, it awakens, at the same 
time, the most hidden fountains of intellectual 
feeling, so that under its spell, more than at any 
other time, we feel 



298 BEGINNING LIFE. 

" Though inland far we be, 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither ; — 
Can in a moment travel thither — 
And see the children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." 

There is no other recreation, if this be the proper 
name for it at all, which is so purely intellectual. 
Other amusements, many games, may exercise 
the intellect, and even largely draw forth its 
powers of forethought, of decision and readi- 
ness ; but music appeals to the soul in those 
deeper springs which lie close to spiritual and 
moral feeling. It lifts it out of the present and 
visible into the future and invisible. Even in 
its gayer and lighter strains it often does this, 
as well as in its more solemn and sacred chants. 
The simple Hit of a song which we have heard 
in youth, or which reminds us of home and 
country — some fragment of melody slight in 
meaning, yet exquisitely touching in sweet or 
pathetic wildness — ^will carry the soul into a 
higher region, and make a man feel kindred 
with the immortals. 

" O joy ! that in our embers 
Is something that doth live ; 
That nature yet remembers 
What was so fugitive ! " 

A joy so precious as this, and which may min- 
ister to such high ends, is one which we are 
bound to cultivate in every manner, and for 



WHA T TO EN JO Y. 299 

which we are warranted in seeking the fullest 
indulgence. The concert, the oratorio, the opera, 
are all, from this point of view, to be commended. 
It appears impossible to make any absolute dis- 
tinction between these forms of musical enter- 
tainment, and to say that the concert and per- 
haps the oratorio are commendable, but not so 
the opera. Such distinctions have their root in 
the same confusion of ideas in which many cur- 
rent moral and religious commonplaces take 
their rise. The pieces of music performed at 
the concert are nothing else in great part but 
detached fragments from the great operatic 
masterpieces. And what is the opera but the 
attempt to realise in a more complete form the 
dramatic and lyric play of passion, in which all 
song and music have their origin ? While the 
opera is thus defensible in its essential charac- 
ter, it is at the same time — on account of the 
high and expensive art which it always involves 
— free from the degrading accessories which too 
often surround the theatre. The fact of operatic 
performances occurring in a place called a 
theatre is not, we presume, a consideration 
which can affect any sensible mind. 

The oratorio stands somewhat by itself. It 
is in its very profession sacred music ; and 
many who would shrink from all contact with 
the opera, are delighted to go to the oratorio, 
and to find at once their taste indulged, and 



300 BEGINNING LIFE. 

their conscience soothed, in listening to its so- 
lemn and majestic, or pensive and pathetic 
music. Others, again, have gone the length of 
recognising a peculiar offence in the very re- 
ligious character of the oratorio. That such 
music should be performed by those who have 
no religious character — that it should be sought 
mainly as an amusement, under the same im- 
pulse that any other public entertainment is 
sought — are points that some clergymen have 
not scrupled to urge in condemnation of ora- 
torios. All that need be said in reply to such 
views is, that they are not more illogical than 
they are unfair/ and therefore unchristian. The 
very same views might be urged against religious 
worship. This worship is, no doubt, sometimes 
conducted by those who have no true religious 
character ; and there are those who join in it 
from no higher motive than to distract the time, 
and because they have nothing else to do. The 
truth is, that all such judgments, where we can 
have no means of ascertaining the real state of 
the case, are grossly uncharitable. They savour 
of a spirit the very opposite of His who said, 
*' Judge not, and ye shall not be judged." We 
have nothing to do with such things. The 
music which thrills with its awful earnest- 
ness — its tones of adoration or of deprecation 
— may proceed from a dead or cold, or from 
a deeply-touched or pious heart. We cannot 



WHAT TO ENJOY. 301 

tell ; no more than we can tell whether the elo- 
quent preacher of " righteousness, temperance, 
and judgment to come," speaks from the fulness 
of a faithful, or the mere readiness of a fluent, 
tongue. It is our business to look to our own 
hearts, and see what good we get from such 
opportunities of good. Such music is truly, as 
Luther says, " a gift of God to us, and not a dis- 
covery of man.'' Let us improve the gift, and 
be thankful to the Giver. 

As to the in-door amusements of which the 
game of billiards may be taken as the type, and 
the other class of amusements that follow, we 
feel at once that we are by no means on such 
secure ground as we have been treading. And 
yet it is not because we have passed into a dif- 
ferent region of fact — because there is any- 
thing in such a game as billiards that is immoral, 
or in any sense illegitimate. On the contrary, 
it is impossible to conceive any game in itself 
more innocent. It admits of exquisite skill, 
calls forth subtle ingenuities of head and hand, 
and promotes free movement and exercise. Yet 
it is no less the case that we would not consider 
it a good but a bad sign of any young man that 
he spent his time in billiard-rooms. We do not 
even excuse the same devotion to billiards, or 
any such game, as we do to any of those out- 
door and more invigorating sports of which we 



302 BEGINNING LIFE. 

have spoken. We would infinitely rather see a 
young man fond of fishing, or shooting, or boat- 
ing, or golf, or cricket, or any such sport, than 
we would see him fond of billiards. And yet 
billiard-playing is certainly in itself quite as 
innocent as any of these sports. Another proof, 
if any were needed, that the common sense and 
judgment take in not merely the essential cha- 
racter of any game or amusement, but its whole 
accessories, and these often more prominently 
and determinately than anything else. A devo- 
tion to billiard-playing in a young man is rightly 
held to imply an idle and luxurious nature, and to 
expose to chances of evil companionship, which 
may prove of fatal consequence. We cannot say 
to any young man, Do not play billiards — it is 
wrong to do so ; because we have no warrant to 
make such a statement — no one has. To affirm 
that to be wrong, which is not in itself wrong, 
which may be practised with the most perfect 
innocence — with the most warrantable enjoy- 
ment — is a dogmatism of the worst kind, which 
can only breed that moral confusion in the minds 
of the young to which we have more than once 
adverted. And moral confusion is a direct 
parent of vice. When once the moral vision is 
clouded, and sees only in a maze, there is no 
security for right principle or consistent conduct. 
We do not venture to say this therefore. But 
we venture to say to every young man, It is not 



WHA T TO EN JO Y. 303 

good for you to indulge much in such an amuse- 
ment. You can only do this at the expense of 
higher considerations. Many other amusements 
are better, more healthful in themselves, and 
more free from dangerous associations. 

The love oi play of any kind in the shape of 
billiards or cards, or anything else, is a hazard- 
ous, and may prove before you are well aware 
of it, a fatal passion. Whenever it begins to 
develop, you have passed the bounds of amuse- 
ment ; and to indulge in any games but for 
amusement is at once an infatuation and temp- 
tation of the worst kind. It is only the idea of 
amusement that sanctions such games. Disso- 
ciated from this idea, they become instruments 
of evil passion, to be repudiated by every good 
man. If you use them at all then, never abuse 
them. And use other games rather. They are 
better in themselves ; they are safer in their 
effects. 

In reference to the last class of amusements 
to which we pass — the theatre, dancing, and fes- 
tive parties among yourselves — all we can say 
is very much of the same character as we have 
now said. These things are not necessarily evil, 
and we cannot take it upon us to say that they 
are. Yet they often lead to evil ; and it is im- 
possible, in the case of the theatre especially, as 
it has always existed and is likely to continue 



304 BEGINNING LIFE. 

to exist among us, not to feel that the young 
man who seeks his amusement there is courting 
dangers of the most seductive and fatal character. 
Why so ? Not certainly that there is anything 
vicious in the representation of human passion 
and action upon the stage. Not surely that the 
drama is essentially vicious in its tendency, or 
sheds from it an immoral influence. On the con- 
trary, the drama is in its idea noble and exalting 
— one of the most natural, and therefore most 
effective expressions of literary art. Who may 
not be m.ade wiser and better by the study of 
Shakspeare's wonderful creations } In what hu- 
man compositions rather than in his plays would 
a young man seek for the stimulus of high 
thoughts, and the excitement of lofty and heroic 
or gentle and graceful virtues } The stage in its 
true conception is a school of morals as well as 
of manners, in which the things that are ex- 
cellent should commend themselves, and the 
things that are low and bad shew their own 
disgrace. There is no species of entertainment 
that can, according to its true idea, more com- 
pletely vindicate itself than the theatre. 

Luther felt this, and has dwelt upon it with 
his usual heartiness. " Plays," he says, '' are to 
be allowed, because they are written in beau- 
tiful poetry, and characters are portrayed and 
represented by which the people are instructed, 
and every man is reminded and admonished of 



WHAT TO ENJOY. 305 

his rank and office, what is becoming in a ser- 
vant or due to a master, and an old man, and 
the station each should assume in society ; nay, 
here is exhibited, as in a mirror, the splendour 
of dignities and offices, the responsibility of our 
duties, and how each one should conduct him- 
self in his station and general behaviour. At 
the same time, the cunning artifices and decep- 
tions of unprincipled villains are described and 
held up to view ; likewise the duty of parents to 
their children, how they should educate their 
young people, and persuade them to marry at 
a proper time ; and how the children should 
shew obedience to their parents. Circumstances 
are exhibited in plays the knowledge of which 
is generally useful — as for instance the interior 
government of a family, which can be learned 
only in or by' representation of a married life. 
And Christians ought not to throw comedies 
aside, because there sometimes occur expressions 
not proper for every ear ; for even the Bible it- 
self might in this view be kept out of sight. 
Those objections, therefore, which are brought 
forward why Christians should be forbidden to 
read or perform plays, are feeble and ground- 
less." 

Clear and honest words, as all Luther's are. 
The argument is satisfactory and to the point 
Dramatic representation is, in its idea, a compe- 
tent minister of such high uses as he describes. 
u 



3o6 BEGINNING LIFE. 

Yet it remains no less true that the theatre is 
not, in its actual accessories, as it exists among 
us, a school of morals. Is it not too fre- 
quently the reverse ? Conceive the case of a 
young man, of good principles and unblem- 
ished character, carried by some of his compa- 
nions, for the first time, to the theatre. Would 
the good or the evil influences be uppermost in 
such a case ? Would the associations of the 
place — the late hours, the after entertainment — 
not cast into the shade any happier effects that 
might flow from what he heard or saw ? Would 
any Christian parent contemplate, without un- 
easiness, a play-going fondness in his son ? In 
point of fact, is such a fondness likely to lead to 
any good ? Do the young men who most ex- 
hibit it, develop into earnest, or excellent, or use- 
ful characters ? These questions, we fear, are too 
easily answered in the negative. And, therefore, 
while we think with Luther, we would add a 
caution to his words. The performance of plays 
is not to be reprobated — those who go this 
length will be found to have a most inadequate 
and narrow idea both of life and literature, and 
to belong to the " fanatics " with whom the great 
Reformer " could never agree ; " but attendance 
upon the theatre is to be practised with modera- 
tion and caution. ^'AU things are lawful for 
me, but all things are not expedient : all things 
are lawful for me, but all things edify not." I£ 



WHA 7 TO EN JO Y. 307 

anywhere this wise rule of St Paul's applies, it 
is here. Young* men may go to the theatre — • 
may lawfully and innocently do so ; * but it is 
not expedient that they do so often ; it is not 
expedient that they go in groups of unguarded 
fellowship. The enjoyment is not in itself to 
be condemned ; but temptation lies everywhere 
folded in its accessories. Temptation is to be 
shunned — the appearance of evil is to be avoided. 
The most excellent way of doing this is to go, 
when you do go to the theatre, with those whom 
you love and respect — ^with the members of your 
own family. In this manner all the accessory evils 
of the enjoyment are most completely disarmed, 
and all its highest good most effectually secured. 

Dancing is to be indulged with the same limi- 
tations. None but a fanatic of the most gloomy 
description could impute any harm to the act of 
dancing in itself. Here, also, the bright-hearted 
Reformer (and yet he was often sad-hearted, too) 
lays down the principle. " The inqpiry is made,*' 
he says, "if dancing is to be reckoned a sin. 
Whether among the Jews dancing was the cus- 
tom, I do not indeed know ; but since among us 

* These remarks have been the subject of a good deal of criticism. 
We feel ourselves, after full reflection, unable to modify them. 
We cannot condemn the mere fact of attendance at the theatre, 
in any circumstances. And those who take up this position can 
only do so consistently on different principles from those whidi 
underlie all our views on the subject of ** Recreation." 



3o8 BEGINNING LIFE. 

it IS customary to invite guests to dine, to eat, 
and be merry, and also to dance, I do not see 
how this practice can be rejected. The abuse, 
however, must be avoided. That wickedness 
and sin are often the consequences, is not attri- 
butable to the act of dancing. If everything is 
done with decorum, you will be able to dance 
with your guests. Faith and love are not ban- 
ished by dancing." No, indeed. And whatever 
natural amusement is consistent with the exer- 
cise of these virtues, is not to be banned by 
hard-hearted dogmatists. But abuse is to be 
carefully guarded against. Dancing too readily 
degenerates into dissipation — and innocent 
gaiety passes into frivolity — and the flutter of 
excited interest into the craving for artificial 
passion. All such extremes are evil — bad in 
themselves, and hurtful in their consequences. 

In the same manner festive parties among 
yourselves, how light and genial and happy may 
they be ! What feast of reason and flow of soul ! 
What flash of wit and cannonade of argurnent 
may they call forth ! What radiant sparks, the 
memory of which will never die out, but come 
back in the easy and humorous moments of an 
earnest and it may be a sad existence, and 
brighten up the past with the momentary corus- 
cations of a departed 'brilliancy ! What deep, 
hearty friendship may illuminate and beautify 
them ! Yet we know that such gladsome mo 



WIIA T TO EN JO Y. 309 

ments are peculiarly akin to danger. Merriment 
may pass into wantonness, and legitimate indul- 
gence into a riotous carouse. Moderation is the 
difficulty of youth in everything. Yet when the 
bounds of moderation are once passed, all the 
enjoyment is gone — recreation ceases. 

** Mirth and laughter, and the song, and the 
dance, and the feast, and the wine-cup, with all 
the jovial glee which circulates around the festive 
board, are only proper to the soul at those seasons 
when she is filled with extraordinary gladness, 
and should wait until those seasons arrive in order 
to be partaken of wholesomely and well ; but by 
artificial means to make an artificial excitement 
of the spirits is violently to change the law and 
order of our nature, and to force it to that to 
which it is not willingly inclined. Without such 
high calls and occasions, to make mirth and 
laughter is to belie nature, and misuse the ordi- 
nance of God. It is a false glare, which doth but 
shew the darkness and deepen the gloom. It is 
to wear out and dissipate the oil of gladness, so 
that, when gladness cometh, we have no light of 
joy within our souls, and look upon it with baleful 
eyes. It is not a figure, but a truth, that those who 
make those artificial merriments night after night 
have no taste for natural mirth, and are gloomy 
and morose until the revels of the table or the 
lights of the saloon bring them to life again. 
Nature is worsted by art — artificial fire is stolen, 



3IO BEGINNING LIFE 

but not from heaven, to quicken the pulse of life, 
and the pulse of life runs on with fevered speed, 
and the strength of man is prostrated in a few 
brief years, and old age comes over the heart when 
life should yet be in its prime. And not only is 
heaven made shipwreck of, but the world is 
made shipwreck of — not only the spiritual man 
quenched, but the animal man quenched, by such 
unseasonable and intemperate merrymakings/'* 
In all your enjoyments, therefore, be moderate. 
The principle that leads and regulates you must 
be from within. The more the subject of recrea- 
tion is candidly and comprehensively looked at, 
the more it is studied in a spirit of sense and rea- 
son, the more difficult will it appear to lay down 
any external rules that shall make out its charac- 
ter and determine its indulgence. Everywhere 
the difficulty appears extreme, and all wise men 
will admit it to be so, when amusement is viewed 
merely from the outside. But look within, and 
set your heart right in the love of God and the 
faith of Christ, and difficulties will disappear. 
Your recreation will fit in naturally to your life. 
You will throw the evil from you, however near 
you may sometimes come to it, and you will get 
the good which few things in the world are with- 
out. The inner life in you will assimilate to the 
Divine everywhere, and return its own blessed 
and consecrating influence to all your work and 
all your amusements. 

* Edward Irving. 



CONCLUSION, 




CONCLUSION. 




,T is well for the young man even in 
entering upon life, to remember its 
termination, and how swiftly and 
suddenly the end may come. "Here 
we have no continuing city." We 
are "strangers and pilgrims, as all our fathers 
were," and the road of life at its very opening may 
pass from under us, and ere we have well entered 
upon the enjoyments and work of the present, we 
may be launched into the invisible and future 
world that awaits us. At the best life is but a 
brief space. " It appeareth for a little moment, 
and then vanisheth away." It is but a flash out 
of darkness soon again to return into darkness. 



314 BEGINNING LIFE. 

Or, as the old Saxon imagination conceived, it 
is like the swift flight of a bird from the night 
without, through a lighted chamber, filled with 
guests and warm with the breath of passion, 
back into the cold night again * We stand, as 
it were, on a narrow " strip of shore, waiting till 
the tide, which has washed away hundreds of 
millions of our fellows, shall wash us away also 
into a country of which there are no charts, and 
from which there is no return/' The image may 
be almost endlessly varied. The strange and 
singular uncertainty of life is a stock theme of 
pathos ; but no descriptive sensibility can really 
touch all the mournful tenderness which it ex- 
cites. 

It is not easy for a young man, nor indeed for 
any man in high health and spirits, to realise the 
transitoriness of life and all its ways. Nothing 
would be less useful than to fill the mind with 
gloomy images of death, and to torment the 
present by apprehensions as to the future. Re- 
ligion does not require nor countenance any 
such morbid anxiety ; yet it is good also to sober 
the thoughts with the consciousness of life's 
frailty and death's certainty. It is good above 
all to live every day as we would wish to have 
done when we come to die. We need not keep 
the dread event before us, but we should do our 
work and duty as if we were ever waiting for it 
• Bede^ ii. 13. 



CONCLUSION, 315 

and ready to encounter it. "Whatsoever thy 
hand findeth to do, do it with thy might : for 
there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor 
wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest." 

Our work here should always be preparatory 
for the end. Our enjoyments should be such as 
shall not shame us when we stand face to face 
with death. The young, and the old too, but 
especially the young, are apt to forget this. In 
youth we fail to realise the intimate dependency, 
the moral coherency which binds life together 
everywhere, and gives an awful meaning to every 
part of it. We do not think of consequences as 
we recklessly yield to passion, or stain the soul 
by sinful indulgence. But the storm of passion 
never fails to leave its waste, and the stain, al- 
though it may have been washed by the tears of 
penitence, and the blood of a Saviour, remains. 
There is something different, something less 
firm, less clear, honest, or consistent in our life 
in consequence ; and the buried sin rises from 
its grave in our sad moments, and haunts us with 
its terror, or abashes us with its shame. As- 
suredly it will find us out at last, if we lose not 
all spiritual sensibility. When our feet begin 
"to stumble on the dark mountains,'* and the 
present loses its hold upon us, and the objects of 
sense wax faint and dim, there is often a strangely 
vivid light shed over our whole moral history. 
Our life rises before us in its complete develop- 



3i6 BEGINNING LIFE. 

ment, and with the scars and wounds of sin Just 
where we made them. The sorrow of an irre- 
parable past comes upon us, and we are tortured 
in vain by the thought of the good we have 
thrown away, or of the evil we have made our 
portion. 

Let no young man imagine for a moment 
that it can ever be unimportant whether he 
yields to this or that sinful passion, or, as it 
may appear to him at the time, venial indul- 
gence. Let him not try to quiet his conscience 
by the thought that at the worst he will outlive 
the memory of his folly, and attain to a higher 
life in the future. Many may seem to him to 
have done this. Many of the greatest men have 
been, he may think, wild in youth. They have 
" sown their wild oats," as the saying is, and had 
done with them ; and their future lives have 
only appeared the more remarkable in the view 
of the follies of their youth. A more mis- 
chievous delusion could not possibly possess the 
mind of. any young man. For as surely as the 
innermost law of the world is the law of moral 
retribution, they who sow wild oats will reap, 
in some shape or another, a sour and bitter 
harvest. For "whatsoever a man soweth that 
shall he also reap : he that soweth to the flesh, 
shall of the flesh reap corruption ; he that sow- 
eth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life 
everlasting." 



CONCLUSION, 317 

There is nothing more sure than this law of 
moral connexion and retribution. Life, through 
all its course, is a series of moral impulses and 
consequences, each part of which bears the im- 
press of all that goes before, and again com- 
municates its impress to all that follows. And 
it is with the character which is the sum of all 
that we meet death, and enter on the life to 
c^me. Every act of life — all our work, and 
study, and enjoyment — our temptations, our sins, 
our repentance, our faith, our virtue are pre- 
paring us — whether we think it or not — for hap- 
piness or misery hereafter. It is this more than 
anything that gives such a solemn character to 
the occupations of life. They are the lessons 
for a higher life. They are an education — a 
discipline for hereafter. This is their Highest 
meaning. 

Let young men remember the essential bear- 
ing of the present upon the future. In be- 
ginning life let them remember the end of it, 
and how it will be at the end as it has been 
throughout. All will be summed up to this 
point; and the future and the eternal will take 
their character from the present and the tem^ 
porary. " He that is unjust, let him be unjust 
still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy 
still : and he that is righteous, let him be right- 
eous still : and he that is holy, let him be holy 
still." The threads of our moral history run 



3i8 BEGINNING LIFE. 

on in unbroken continuity. The shadow o< 
death may cover them from the sight; but they 
emerge in the world beyond in like order as they 
were here. 

Make your present life therefore a prepara- 
tion for death and the life to come. Make it 
such by embracing now the light and love of 
God your Father — by doing the work of Christ 
your Saviour and Master — by using the world 
without abusing it — by seeking in all your du- 
ties, studies, and enjoyments, to become meet 
for a "better country, that is, an heavenly." 
To the youngest among you the time may be 
short. The summons to depart may come in 
" a day and an hour when you think not." 
Happy then the young man whose Lord shall 
find him waiting — working — looking even from 
the portals of an opening life here to the gates 
of that celestial inheritance " incorruptible and 
undefiled, and that fadeth not away!" 



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his way into a position of honorable independence, and who v/as among the first to rally round 
the flag when the day of his country's peril came. There is a sound, manly tone about the 
book, a freedom from namby-^ambyism, worthy of all commendation." — Sunday ScJwol Tifnes* 

*' One of the best of stories for boys." — Hartford Courant, 

'' Carleton," (C. C. Coffin's) Writings. 

OUR NEW WAY ROUND THE WORLD : Where to Go, and 
What to See. 8vo. 550 pages. With several Maps, and over 100 
Engravings. Cloth $2.50. Popular edition, paper $1.00, cloth $1.50. 

" A more delightful book of travels has not in a long time fallen into our hands. There is 
not a dry line in it. He saw only what was worth seeing. What he says is worth saying, 
and he says it naturally and freshly ; one is only sorry to get to the end." — New York 
Christian A dvocate. 



TALES OF THE ST. LAWRENCE. By G. C. Chapin. i vol. 
Crown 8vo. Cloth. $1.50. 

THE BUTTERFLY HUNTERS. By Mrs. H. S. Connant. i 
vol. Square i6mo., 175 pages. Illustrated. 

**A very handsome and instructive book for the young, with carefully drawn illustraj- 
tions, which add greatly to its attractiveness*" — New York Evangelist* 

WILLIE WINKIE'S NURSERY RHYMES OF SCOTLAND. 

With Frontispiece by BiUings. i vol. i6mo. 100 pages. $1.25. 

This has been pronounced the most elegant juvenile ever pubhshed 
in America. The ornamentation is profuse, and in the highest style 
of art ; while the songs have alJ the pathos and pleasantry of the 
Scotch bard. 



RECENT PUBLICATIONS AND RE-ISSUES. 



Henry Kingsley's Writings. 

'* Mr. Henry Kingsley is to be welcomed among the masters of modem fiction. * Ravens- 
hoe ' gives him place with Thackeray, Charles Kingsley, Dickens, and Mrs. Stowe. The 
book is one of great •po'w&r.''^— Hart/or d Press. 



THE RECOLLECTIONS OF GEOFFRY HAMLYN. i vol. 
i2mo., 538 pages. 

*' It is fresh, breezy, heaRhy, straightforvvard, free from nonsense, full of the most delightful 
descriptive passages,' yet with no long digressions, dramatic, warlike, adventurous, tender at 
times ; indispensable and omnipresent love not being neglected, while the friendships formed 
in the Australian deserts are admirably described. . . The whole book, in fine, is admirable.'* 
— Springfield Republican. 

RAVENSHOE. i vol. i2mo., 434 pages. $1.75. 
AUSTIN ELLIOT, i vol. i2mo., 360 pages. $1.75. 

" * Austin Elliot ' is a novel such as is not found every day in this novel writing age. It is 
real, genuine. Its characters are live persons, who act as people do in this world, and express 
themselves in a language that is not entirely different from that of ordinary life. The con- 
sequence is, that every character m this book possesses a distinct individuality, which will be 
remembered long by the reader ; and the most important incidents of the plot, which is 
of much interest, happen naturally and quietly. Through the whole volume the author shows 
a quiet humor and honest love of fun which give a genial glow to his chapters, and establish 
the pleasantest relations between him and his readers.' " —iWw Fi^r-^ J'^'/^z^w^. 

LEIGHTON COURT. A Country-House Story, i vol. i6mo., 200 
pages. $1.50. 

** This is a charming story. . . . The style is wonderfully fresh and vigorous; the plot is 
ingenious and interesting ; and the characters are drawn v/ith a sharpness of outline and a 
dramatic discrimination that shows the hand of a master ; and the landscape-painting is 
as fine as only Mr. Kingsley could have made it." — Boston Advertiser. 

THE HILLYARS AND THE BURTONS. A Story of Two 
Families, i vol. i2mo., 428 pages. $1.75. 

SILCOTE OF SILCOTES, i vol. 8vo., 144 pages. Paper, TS 
cents. 



FARMING FOR BOYS: What they have done, and what Others 
may do in the Cultivation of Farm and Garden ; how to Be^^in 
how to Proceed, and what to Aim at. By the author of '* Ten 
Acres Enough." Illustrated, i vol. Square i6mo., 390 pages 
$1.50. 



LOVELL, ADAM, WESSON ^ CO. 



SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS A YEAR. A Wife's Effort at Living 
under High Prices, i vol. i6 mo., 200 pages. Cloth, Gilt Edges, 
75 cents. 

** This is the story of a wife, showing how, by economy and taste, the family lived comiort- 
ably on six hundred dollars a year. It is an entertaining volume, and full of good sense." — 
Boston Recorder. 

** This is a book that will save not only many dollars a year, but in some cases many hun- 
dreds, by the thrifty hints it throws out." — Philadelphia Ledger. 

"It combines the merits of a novel with those of a cook-book." — Boston Transcript* 

A LOVER'S DIARY. By Alice Gary. With Illustrations by Hen- 
nessy and others, i vol. i6mo., 250 pages. Full Gilt, Cloth, 

$1.50. 

** For the pure loveliness of love, for the sweetly potent expression of its real character, for 
the fortifying of the heart against all sensuousness and evil heats and vicious warping of the 
nature, profaning the sacred name of love, we find Miss Gary's poem incomparable. Wo 
are glad to know that it will have many thousand readers." — Brooklyn Union, 



LAKE CHAMPLAIN LIBRARY OF NOVELS 



1. THE MEMBER FOR PARIS. By Grenvi lie Murray, ^l 

2. THE QUEEN OF THE REGIMENT. By Katharine 

King, -js 

3. THE MARQUIS DE VILLEMER, By George Sand, TS 

4. CESARINE DIETRICH. By George Sand, -Ji 

5. A ROLLING STONE. By George Sand, 50 

6. HANDSOME LAWRENCE. By Geo. Sand, 50 

7. LOVE AND VALOR. By Tom Hood, ^^ 

8. THE STORY OF SIBYLLE. By Octave Feuillet,. . .^s 

9. FOUL PLAY. By Charles Reade, 50 

ID. READY MONEY MORTIBOY TS 

11. MY LITTLE. GIRL. By Author of "Ready Money 

Mortiboy," .75 

12. PENRUDDOCKE. By Hamilton Aide, IS 

13. YOUNG BROWN. By Grenville Murray, • ^^ 

14. A NINE DAYS' WONDER. By Hamilton Aide, ^s 

15. SILCOTE OF SILCOTES. By Henry Kingsley, TS 

LOVELL, ADAM, WESSON & CO., Publishers. 

764 Broadway, New York. 



